Harry The HufflePuff 4
by BajaB
Summary: Not going to school would have been way too much effort, and besides, Harry had promised that since last year was a bit boring, he was going to not try to avoid everything this year..
1. The begining

_I told you all it was going to take four years, and I am a man of my word. Frankly, I am amazed people are still reading and reviewing my stories._

 _Much of this was written years ago and it has not been finished yet, but I am trying. Also, this is goign to be a lot shorter than previous stories. Sorry, but I expect it is going to be closer in size to my old one-shot stories._

Spread the word - Lazry!Harry is stil determined to not make an effort.

#

Two hundred miles away from where a war veteran with a decidedly shady past was making himself a late night spot of tea, Harry Potter startled himself awake with a particularly loud snore.

This was rather annoying to the young teen as he had been having a truly vivid dream about being fast asleep.

While that does not sound quite right, for a normal person, it fits perfectly for this boy. You see, Harry Potter was determined to become the laziest person to have ever lived, and he worked at it constantly. Not even the long hours of bed rest he rewarded himself with for achieving milestones in sloth (such as not getting out of bed before lunch time for two days in a row) were spared from his goal.

As a fledgling wizard attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or HoSWiWi as Harry had recently taken to referring to it as (because it felt like he was using less energy saying Hoss-Wee-Wee than Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, plus it was sure to annoy Snape), he had some unique opportunities to develop his laziness. The ability to summon object from across the room and then banish them away was a stalwart skill he had been working on for years, and his devotion to learning the subtle and exact art of using charms to bypass manual labour of every kind was becoming legendary (as opposed to the stupidly dangerous, complex and wasteful mess that was Professor Snape's potion making, or "Cooking for Suicidal Idiots", as Harry renamed it).

Currently Harry was using an obscure mental art to try and control his dreams, and was making some good progress. He was getting quite proficient at becoming aware he was dreaming for just long enough to direct his mind towards more satisfying scenarios, such as sleeping in his dreams.

The young wizard's outlook on life would likely have been very different had it not being for his less-than-loving aunty and uncle, and the round blob of lard they called their son. These were Harry's closest relatives and the 'creatures' tasked with raising him after his parents were brutally murdered by a lunatic (who's consciousness was currently apparently residing in a blood splattered glass jar amongst the many nick-knacks in Headmaster Dumbledore's office). This 'family' routinely accused Harry of being lazy, selfish and generally an unwanted drain on their resources, and while it had not been true at first, Harry chose to give them exactly what they wanted, and so dedicated much of his nearly 14 years of existence to proving them right.

Of course, just being a lazy git was not a particularly ambitious goal, so Harry naturally decided he would be the laziest git ever, and do it in such a way that no one could fault him for it.

Last year he 'took a year off' of pushing his laziness, and it had turned out a bit boring (by his somewhat distorted standards). Consequently, this year he was determined to find new and interesting ways to slack off while still getting things done, and so far it was working out brilliantly.

Currently, as he was back at his 'loving' home in Surrey for the summer holidays, Harry was unable to use his wand to perform any of the magic he had been learning for the last three years at HoSWiWi, so he had to make do with specially prepared items and arrangements made before leaving the school for the holidays. Much of this Harry figured out in previous years, such as a trunk full of ready-to-eat food held in magical stasis, and the deal he had with some house-elves to secretly take care of just about every other bit of housework.

In fact, the House-elves were really coming through for Harry this year, and it was causing Vernon (Harry's uncle) to develop an ulcer, and his aunty, Petunia, to turn prematurely grey (and possibly develop a secret drinking habit, if the bottles in the recycling bin were anything to go by).

Dudley-the-lard-ball was too dense to be affected, or to even notice anything for that matter.

Harry's new favourite game was to make sure he was fully in sight of either his aunt or uncle as much as possible after they gave him a task to complete, while the House-elves completed the work in a literal blink of an eye without anybody seeing how or when it was done.

Harry was certain Vernon had never before turned quite the same particular shade of purple as he had the third or fourth time the dishes were done before Harry had even gotten into the kitchen, and Petunia was so desperate to find any speck of dust that she had nearly taken a nasty tumble when she tried running a white glove along the top of the high mantle where her ugly collection of plates with ghastly pictures on them resided, in order to find something to make Harry do.

She was so startled by the glove coming back spotless (and she was also possibly a bit intoxicated at the time) that she had taken two steps forward, completely forgetting she was standing on a chair.

Better yet, when she hit the floor it had bent under her like a mattress, absorbing the impact and saving her from some serious bruising at the very least.

Luckily she didn't know that Harry had been watching from the outside through the window while pretending to water the garden, or she would have blamed him for her near accident and miraculous injury-free survival.

Well, she would have thought about blaming him, but then probably would have backed off because Harry had another thing going for him this summer: he was receiving regular letters from his apparently insane, escaped convict, murdering godfather.

The letters were a mystery in themselves. Sirius was completely nuts, but very amusing. He kept referring to incidents that had never happened, like them spending considerable time together at Hogwarts when in reality Harry had never seen the man until a few minutes before leaving the school at the end of the year, and every package included several photos of the escapee in various parts of the world putting Ron's old pet rat in potentially lethal situations.

Harry was a bit shocked to see old Scabbers, wearing a tiny collar and leash, precariously hanging out over a ledge in the Grand Canyon, or being dangled from a stick to entice Crocodiles in the Australian Outback to jump out of the water.

A normal person probably would have panicked or gotten worried that the insane murderer who had supposedly betrayed his parents was possibly making death threats with those photos, but Harry was not a normal person. Worrying about something he had no control over was a habit Harry had long ago broken.

He calmly sent the first of the letters and photos with an explaining note to one of his close friends from HoSWiWi, Susan Bones, as her aunty just happened to be somebody involved in magical law enforcement in some way that Harry never really made an effort to understand. From the excited return letter a few days later, Harry gathered this had caused a huge fuss (that he was extremely glad to have avoided) when Madam Bones had taken the photos to Ron's dad to ask something about the rat, and somehow Harry's defence teacher from the year before got a hold of them and identified the rat as a magically transformed former friend of his everybody thought was dead.

It all got very complicated after that, with betrayals and accusations that Harry frankly could not be bothered trying to figure it out. Somebody would explain it to him later, once it was all sorted, but for now all he needed to know was Sirius was not guilty of the murderers he had been jailed for (although he was definitely insane and still on the run), had not betrayed his parents, was not likely to be threatening him with a brutal death, and the rat was an evil git who deserved everything Sirius was subjecting him to.

That was good enough for Harry, and he even managed to find a couple of the photos amusing. Who knew rats could look terrified while magically glued on the front of a crazy looking roller-coaster car?

At any rate, it was all working itself out without Harry having to do anything except forward his letters to Madam Bones after he had read them, and reply to Sirius with one of his many mostly pre-written form letters (that all his friends were again getting this year), so he counted it as a win.

Vernon and Petunia only knew Sirius from the Muggle news where he was still being described as armed and extremely dangerous. It was no accident that they had found out about the letters from Sirius soon after the first one arrived, since Harry well knew how to make the most out of strange situations, and now their fear kept them in check.

All this left Harry with lots of time on his hands, time that he made sure to waste.

Sure, some people would not consider reading highly advanced magical books a waste (and Harry was thinking about Hermione when he considered this), but not Vernon or Petunia. Nothing riled them up as much as seeing Harry resting blissfully outside under the shade of a tree apparently engrossed in book about Magic!

Vernon had tried taking away Harry's books, locking them under the stairs, or in the shed, or even in the boot of his company car, but somehow they kept showing up again. He even went as far as sneaking into Harry's room in order to collect them up and burn them, but the very first one he stumbled upon tried to bite him, and then chased him around the room for five minutes before Petunia rescued him by holding it at bay with a broom until they could slam the door closed. All the locks on their doors had been upgraded after that incident and the bars on Dudley's windows reinforced (although Harry still thought they would be better off locking him in his room rather than trying to keep him out of theirs).

Harry didn't just spend the time reading though. He had a journal he occasionally jotted down ideas in, mainly so that he did not have to try to remember them later. In just the few weeks away from school, he was already half way through the moleskin notebook. Pages were filled with diagrams and outlines of schemes and contrivances that might help make his year (and indeed life) easier. Half thought out new spells and sequences of runes filled the pages between long trains of notes on alterations to the way the world within HosWiWi worked.

Hermione would likely have a fit if she ever saw the disorganised mess, and Sue would likely get confused and possibly even angry at some of his ideas (like the one were House-elves were tasked with scrubbing people's backs in the showers) both images of which actually made Harry smile when he thought of them. Moon-girl would likely add her own dawdles to his pages, possibly improving them but more likely turning them into artworks of creature too weird to exist even in the magical world.

Damn it, he was doing it again.

The last thing he needed was to keep getting distracted by thoughts of the girls of HosWiWi, but it kept happening. It seemed he could not stop his thoughts from continuously drifting back to pretty much every girl he had ever seen, or met, or in some cases, been told about.

Not that he had ever objected to the thoughts of girls, or the idea of spending a lot more time with them during the upcoming year, but he just knew in his very bones that girls were going to be the cause of a lot of work in his life and he felt powerless to stop it.

How troublesome.

Damn it, he was still doing it. He had to think of something else.

Luckily, right at that moment, an unusual flicker of movement in darkness outside of his window caught his eye. Putting on his glasses, Harry opened the glass and peered out in to the night.

In the far distance, highlighted by the moonlight, a speck was floating towards him. He stood in front of the window and watched as the speck slowly resolved itself into the shape of a large owl. There was never any doubt in his mind that the owl was destined for him, since nobody else nearby was likely to be getting mail delivered by a bird.

Sirius's letter often arrived by exotic and often beautiful tropical looking birds (although the vulture was a bit of a shocker, and he still could not figure out what the thing that looked like a snake with wings was), but most witches and wizards in England used owls for their post. Often strange and non-native owls, because even conservative British magical folk just could not help showing off, but owls still the same.

As it neared, Harry began to notice something not quite right about it, namely that was flying rather erratically, as if was struggling to make it.

Harry found himself holding his breath and silently urging the bird on as is dipped and swayed and struggled to make it across the last few blocks to his window.

Just as it was about to crash into the wall a few feet below him, it gave a mighty surge, and smashed into the wall to the left of Harry with a dull thump.

"Bugger," said Harry, watching the bird tumble lifelessly to the ground two stories below.

He thought about not going down to collect whatever mail it was delivering, but it seemed a bit cruel to leave its body there for the local cats to have their way with after such a heroic effort. Besides, the package might have something interesting in it.

Quietly, Harry slipped on a pair of magically soft and silent slippers, then snuck out of his room and down the stairs. It took a minute to undo all of the locks and chains on the door leading outside, but soon Harry was searching the ground for the unfortunate bird. It didn't take long to find it, spreadeagled on its back as it was.

"Or was that spread-owled?" Harry thought to himself.

Surprisingly, it gave a weak twitch as he picked it up by a wing, causing him to drop it again as it startled him. Cursing quietly to himself, Harry carefully picked the bird up, attached letter and all, and made his way back to the door.

"What are you doing?" asked Dudley sleepily from the doorway, nearly making Harry drop the bird again.

"Nothing," he replied automatically. "What are you doing?"

"Getting a snack of course. Heard you mucking about and came for a look. What's that then?" he said, pointing with a piece of cake at the bird in Harry's arms.

"I was hungry too, so I grabbed a local owl. They go good with strawberry sauce. Want to try some, or aren't you meant to be on a diet or something?"

Dudley screwed his face up in disgust and Harry fought not to smile too much lest it give the game away. It was a bit mean, but Harry did enjoy occasionally tormenting his intelligence-challenged bully of a cousin. Years of being picked on by the huge idiot motivated Harry to do more than just always ignore the moron.

"Strawberry sauce? That's sick. You can't have a desert sauce with a bird of prey! You'll completely ruin the flavour, especially if you fricassee it the way it is meant to be done."

The smile froze on Harry face as he took a few moments to come to terms with the fact Dudley actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about, or could possibly have been taking the piss - or maybe both.

"Right," he said, making a valiant recovery as he pushed past his cousin and made for the stairs. "I'll keep that in mind then. Thanks Big D."

He was also going to keep a closer eye on Hedwig from now on.

By the time Harry had taken his letter from the leg of the ancient looking owl, it had revived enough to squeeze onto the perch next to Hedwig and not drown in the water dish while it gulped down every drop it could.

Harry unrolled the parchment and read his letter, thankfully banishing thoughts of what the hell Dudley was learning in that private school he was attending.

It turned out to be a letter from Ron, one of Harry's acquaintances from HosWiWi, inviting him to attend some huge Quidditch game or another, which was rather surprising since they were not really close mates or anything. They had shared a bit of an adventure together in first year, and Harry did sort of save Ron's younger sister's life in second year, and there was that whole thing with Harry's godfather torturing Ron's pet rat - but those were just isolated incidents.

Further down in the letter it came to light that much of the reasoning involved the fact the tickets were from Sirius as a sorry for abducting Scabbers (although Sirius actually stated they were for 'taking such good care of the little #%!# %$ for so many years'), and Ron's mum thought it was only fair to invite Harry along.

Harry wasn't a huge fan of any sport, although he was forced to play Quidditch at school, and the effort involved was a bit daunting, since Ron had invited him to stay over the night before the game because they were leaving early in the morning, in two days time, which was a bit short notice.

"Just how long did it take you get here?" he asked the practically comatosed delivery owl.

The owl gave him a look that showed it clearly did not appreciate his lack of respect for the feat it had undergone.

On the other hand, Harry was quite keen to see a fully magical household and all the labour saving wonders it was bound to hold. He had planned on seeing if he could visit one of his house mates, but hadn't gotten around to making the effort yet. This would save him from that.

Still, he was probably supposed to send a reply, and there was no way the old owl was going to make it back in time. Hedwig could possibly be convinced, but could Harry be bothered?

Faint noises emanating through the wall between Dudley's room and his own decided him.

Obviously his cousin's midnight food excursion left rotund teenager with a bit too much energy to go back to sleep, and Dudley had apparently made some self-discoveries that Harry really didn't want to think about.

Besides, aside from escaping the Dursley's and getting to see more fantastic magic, Ron's sister was a bit cute, when she wasn't secretly stalking him.

Not again, damn it!

#

Ron's house proved to be quite different from what Harry had expected.

After arriving by fire-place travel, a feat Harry found way too energetic to be enjoyable (although seeing the Dursley's living room half destroyed had been damn funny), the first thing that Harry noticed was how homely Ron's house was.

He guiltily admitted to himself that he had been expecting something a bit grander, since magic was so fantastic and wizards were such show-offs, but the shear warmth and comfort he could feel from every corner of the converted pigpen was magical all in itself.

At first, the crazy architecture of the house gave Harry to some safety concerns, and having to climb several stair cases in order to get to the bedroom was definitely a thing he would change if it was his house, but all in all, the place was just so much nicer than the Dursleys that he instantly forgave all of the minor annoyances, like having to help de-gnome the garden.

"So aside from eating the vegies, they don't actually do any harm, right?" asked Harry as he watched Ron fling another gnome over the hedge.

"They got a nasty bite if they get riled up," answered Ron, watching his projectile tumble away. "But really it's the holes that are a problem. If you leave it get bad enough, you can't even walk on it let alone land a broom."

"Well normally I'd say 'live and let live'," said Harry, "but I guess they are a bit of a problem. Of course, I don't think catching them by hand and tossing them like this is best use of our time though."

Ron, never a fan of chores or work in general, totally agreed with Harry and was fully on board with any plan that involved making life easier.

Once Ron's prankster twin brothers got involved, things did get a bit out of hand, but in the end, and hours after they would have finished if they had performed the job by hand, the first ever 'Gnome-a-pult' was deemed a success.

It helped immensely that the gnomes were just as fascinated with being flung dozens of metres away as the boys who had built the tool. The original idea was to use magic to rewind it ready to fire, with a simple slice of apple as the bait, but Ginny proved it was much easier to teach the gnomes to wind it up themselves and fight for the right to be the next in line.

They really were rather stupid.

Mrs Weasley was dubious about the whole affair, but since it kept the boys busy and out of her hair while still achieving the goal of stopping the pests from ruining her garden, she saw no harm in it.

That night, after a wonderful afternoon of alternating flying, lazing around at the watering hole, and watching gnomes unsuccessfully try to fly via the Gnome-apult and some random feathers, Harry found himself slipping away into his controlled dream state rather contented and quite looking forward to going to the world cup.

Just as long as there was not going to be much in the way of physical activity.

#

"Who's bleeding idea was it to put the boot on top of a hill out in the middle of nowhere?" complained Harry as they trudged along.

He was enjoying the walk through the beautiful country-side, it was very pretty, especially compared to the dull streets around the Dursley's home, but he felt compelled to protest at the needless waste of energy.

Especially when there was a shed full of brooms back at the Burrow just begging to be used.

"I dunno, mate," said Ron, equally annoyed at not being allowed to fly, "but I can't wait to learn to Apparate like Bill so we don't have to do this sort of thing again."

Harry nodded in agreement, making another promise to himself to do exactly what Ron was saying

... unless it took too much energy of course. Then he would just make sure to always have his broom with him.

#

"Just how big is this camping ground?" he asked after ten minutes of wandering around the over- crowded field.

The fascinating array of magical tents was worth the walk, but once again, he could not help feel there had to be a better way than walking. Maybe a flying carpet shuttle service or something? They could charge a Knut each way (a Knut per nut seemed pretty fair).

Still, he got to see a few of his housemates during the stupidly circular trip to the tent Mr Weasley had procured for the event, so that helped (since it meant he wasn't going out of his way to see them and still got the benefit of appearing friendly).

Now he just needed a way to find out how to get to the top of the stadium where their seats were without having to climb all those stairs!

#

The game was surprisingly exciting. It was so much faster and more brutal than the games they played at Hogwarts, it was like comparing riding a pushbike to motor racing.

Omnioculars got Harry excited even before the game started.

"These are exactly what I need to record classes with!" he exclaimed, lamenting the lost time spend developing the memory spheres with Lockhart.

Then again, that whole endeavour came with its own advantages, namely the 'extra-curricular' content that was making him a pretty penny as well as providing hours of entertainment for his reoccurring preoccupation.

When the Veela mascots took to the field to hypnotise the male portion of the audience, it was only the fact Harry was dutifully recording the whole thing that stopped him from joining Ron and the other boys in making fools of themselves (because it was way too much work to record and do something impressive for the Veela at the same time).

Then he missed a large portion of the early part of game watching the replay trying to reconcile the visions of loveliness he recalled with rather alien looking females in the recording.

In fact, it wasn't until he found something snuggled up inside his pocket that he stopped going back to the replay and really took note of the scoring.

"er, Ron," he asked timidly. "Is there some sort of penalty for a spectator interfering with the snitch during a game?"

"Anybody stupid enough to do that would probably find themselves inside Azkaban!" said Ron, not taking his eyes off the game.

"Oh," said Harry, almost crushing the snitch in his pocket.

Luckily he was able to throw the damn thing away without anybody seeing him when everybody was jumping up and down because of another score, and Victor Crum caught it before it could make its way back to Harry, although he nearly crashed into the boy-who-lived in order to get it before his rival.

Harry wondered if that was the reason the star had such a sour look on his face, or maybe it was the chocolate that had melted in his pocket where the snitch had been huddled.

Either way, Harry was glad he would never have to explain to the grumpy looking fellow why the chocolate covered thing seemed to be behaving so strangely.

#

"I am not running all the way to some bloody forest in the middle of the night just because some morons are causing a riot," announced Harry as the explosions got closer. "I mean this sort of thing is pretty standard at premier league football matches, so what's the big deal?"

"Now is not the time to be stubborn," said Charlie, Ron's oldest brother as he tried to start shuffling them out the flap of the tent.

"I'm not being stubborn, I am being sensible," said Harry. "Running around in a riot in the dark is madness. What if there are more of these nutters hiding in the woods waiting for scared, defenceless kids to run to and be captured, horribly tortured, and then violently dismembered?"

"I think you spend way too much time thinking about this sort of thing," said B1, who Harry was pretty sure was Fred, but it didn't really matter since they were fairly interchangeable.

"Nevertheless, if you want to get us out of here, make another port-key," suggested Harry.

"We aren't allowed to make Portkeys without proper Ministerial permission," protested Percy, Ron most 'stuck-up' brother.

He was so stuck up, Harry had to continuously refrain from calling him 'Stick' out loud.

"Like anybody is going to care about that right now," said Harry. "Just make one and get us and the tent out of here. Blame it on trying to protect the boy-who-lived if you have to – I don't mind."

A brief but heated discussion ensued, but all Harry really cared about was not having to run if there was a viable alternative.

Finally the decision was made and sanity prevailed, with Harry and co taking another gut-wrenching journey back to Ron's house while holding onto the central pole of the tent that had become the port-key.

"Well that was pretty exciting," said Harry, preparing himself for bed a few minutes after untangled himself from the inevitable human pileup that occurred on landing.

Portkeys were not one of Harry's preferred methods of travel.

"You are just going to go to sleep?" asked Charlie incredulously. "Just like that?"

"Not much else to do," pointed out Harry, "and seems like such a waste not to use the beds, with them all being made up and such. Besides, I'm sure you adult folk will be running around doing all sorts of noisy things like arguing about who is responsible and who is at fault, so it'd be much better if us lot stayed in here out of the way and undisturbed, right?"

Charlie's look was clearly unbelieving, but that didn't matter to Harry.

The boy-who-lived-to-sleep was nothing if not practical, and he was supremely confident somebody would eventually get around to sorting it out and telling them what it all meant.

#

Harry ended up staying with the Weasley's until it was time to return to school. Mrs Weasley was so incensed at the thought that his Aunty and Uncle would, if anything, be disappointed that he had not been murdered during the incident at the World cup, that she simply refused to let him return home. It was his own fault for honestly answering her questions about letting them know he was okay after the attack.

Despite not being able to return to his routine, Harry still found himself with lots of time on his hands, and an amazing world of magic that he would never get to see at school. Mrs Weasley absolutely loved his modern mandolin slicer, and already owned a Snape-Stirrer without realising it was his invention. She introduced him to the art of cooking with magic, mistakenly thinking Harry was there doing his bit to help out when in fact he was just intrigued at the many shortcuts using magic introduced into the chore.

Ron was less impressed, but happily let Harry distract his mum. While the twins tried making fun of him, Ginny somehow managed to either be angry at him for his less than stellar prior treatment of her, or reverted to her overly shy original treatment of him. He was fairly sure she was often spying on him too, but he wasn't going to go to the effort of finding out.

Mr Weasley had some truly interesting ideas about Muggles technology that Harry enjoyed hearing, but his discussions with Stick about work at the Ministry of Magic set Harry teeth on edge.

"So, can somebody tell me why they don't just use magic to report and record when an illegal spell is cast?" he asked. "I mean, the trace reports when we do magic outside of school, so why not just use that to record if people cast spells like this giant-floaty-skull thing and issue the fines and notices automatically, instead of having every department running around trying to figure out what happened? And can't you use sneak-o-scopes or something like that to sort out which of these buggers are lying about the damages they are claiming?"

The sheer amount of redundancy and repetition made by the ridiculous bureaucracy was nothing short of criminal. Mr Weasley and even Stick had been working non-stop since the fiasco, despite the fact neither of them were directly involved in anything to do with the cup.

Stick was positively outraged at the thought something could be done in a better way that was not suggested by a person already in the government.

Harry silently vowed to have as little as possible to do with the whole mess that was the Ministry.

"Spells like the Trace are not that precise," explained Mr Weasly. "They can't really tell who has cast a spell, just that a spell was cast in the general area where the trace was placed. A bit of guessing goes into all of it, and it would take a witch or wizard to follow up and make sure it really was an underage person who cast it, especially when it happens in an area where a lot of magicals are, and there just aren't ever enough people for that."

Suddenly the room, that just prior to his statement was awash with several conversations, went deathly still as all of the underage Weasley children turned to stare at their father.

"What, like the family home of a magical family perhaps?" asked one of the twins with an innocence Harry was surprised either of them could fake.

Mr Weasley's face froze as he realised what he had inadvertently let out of the bag.

"Oh dear," he said, just before Mrs Weasley took a deep breath in order to 'lay down the law', but it was too late and the twin's faces were already sprouting huge grins.

For Harry, that was just the icing on the cake of what had quickly become his best holiday ever.

#

It took barely any convincing to get Ron to make sure all of his gear was ready to go the night before they had to leave. Once Harry found the Pack spell in one of his many household charms books, they had a great deal of fun practicing it.

Well the spell itself wasn't that much fun, but unpacking and throwing their stuff around in increasingly random and spread out ways in order to 'get the most out of the learning experience' certainly was, especially since it usually ended up in 'clothes war'. He was pretty sure the twins had started the first one, but Ginny definitely contributed to the chaos, somehow managing to get her underpants over Harry's head several times (which oddly did not upset him as much as he made out).

Ron's mum was less understanding about their newfound desire to practice magic, but was fairly easy to get around, since they had opted to stay in the magically expanded tent rather than return to Ron's more cramped room.

Ginny's cat also didn't appreciate their skill when it accidentally got caught up in one casting and ended up buried in Harry's trunk and nearly eaten by the Monster Book of Monsters.

Still, when the morning came, Mrs Weasley was certainly suspicious of her children all being ready on time without her direct involvement, but grateful nevertheless.

"Here, Harry," said one of the twins passing him a bag of lollies. "We really owe you for finding out about the Trace."

"Yeah, we got so much done after we found out we could cast silencing spells," said the second one. "Be careful with those though. We're pretty sure the effects are only temporary, but until we can get a few more test subjects, you can't be too certain."

Harry accepted the bag, noting their plans for opening a joke store based around a range of magical lollies with interesting effects were a lot further along than anybody realised.

The plan to take Muggle taxi's to King's Cross after Mr Weasley was called away on some urgent business involving a mad bloke with one eye, was quickly aborted when Harry explained they would not normally be used to transport so many large trunks or live animals like his owl.

In truth he didn't really know it would be an issue, but he was rather hoping to convince Ron's older brothers and mother to Apparate them there instead. They could take the knight bus, but he was eager to try this new (to him) form of transportation.

Mrs Weasley reluctantly agreed, since both of his brothers and herself could take more than one person and one trunk at a time.

Unfortunately, Harry found out it was only slightly better than a Portkey, and still nowhere near as much fun as flying a broom. He was pretty sure he could get used to the feeling of been squeezed through a rubber tire, but the landing sucked just as bad, with him somehow ending up on his bottom, yet again.

But at least it did save them a long, uncomfortable trip in a couple of boring old taxis.

#

"So Potter, going to enter are you?" asked Draco, standing at the door to the compartment where Harry was once again unsuccessfully trying to sleep.

Ron was off catching up with his Gryffindor mates leaving Harry to bear the brunt of Hermione's interrogation about the events at the World Cup. Likewise, the twins and Ginny had all gone their separate ways.

Sue and Hannah had joined him first, with Hermione joining them just after he finished telling them about it all. She insisted he recount everything yet again, and kept digging in for more details and explanations than could reasonably be expected of him. He just couldn't see anything wrong with his first explanation of "Yeah, somebody was apparently causing some trouble so we left before it got near us."

Then Justin and Ernie joined them and added in their own versions of what happened, and were subsequently interrogated almost as much as Harry. At that point he wondered if he should have just written it all down.

No, Hermione at least probably would still have demanded a verbal retelling.

"Probably not, Slick," said Harry casually, for once grateful to see the Slytherin. "You?"

Draco was a bit taken aback by Harry's answer.

"What? Why not?"

"Too much trouble," said Harry. "It hardly seems worth it, does it?"

"No, I suppose not," said Malfoy, smiling. "At least, not for you, right? I mean a thousand Galleons is hardly worth getting out of bed for, and fame isn't everything, is it?"

"Don't I know it," agreed Harry, smiling ruefully.

Draco, nodded his head to other occupants almost respectfully and then left, somehow avoiding looking at Hermione.

"What a git," spat Hermione as soon as the door was closed. "What is he talking about Harry?"

"No Idea," said Harry shrugging.

He probably would have admitted to not knowing what Draco was talking about, if it had been anybody except Draco. Slick was the sort of arrogant idiot that ended up being more work the more serious you took him.

"Something big is happening this year," Sue told them. "My Aunty was always going on about it, giving me all of these little hints and clues, but not outright telling me."

"How annoying," said Justin.

Harry agreed, although he was quite interested, since last year had turned out to be so boring that he promised to get into something this year.

"Well, whatever it is, it involves possibly winning a thousand Galleons and becoming famous," said Hermione.

"Or more famous, in Harry's case," pointed out Ernie.

"Sounds interesting," said Hannah, to the general agreement of all.

"Just so long as it's fun," said Harry. "And easy - Not interested if it involves anything like real work."

#

Harry's loud cheer was decidedly out of place.

"What?" he asked, looking around at all the whispering people in the great hall.

"Mate, you are not meant to be happy that there is no Quidditch Cup this year!" whispered Justin.

"You're not the one that would normally be looking at a having to drag yourself out onto the pitch several times a week come hail or shine to practice plays that have nothing to do with you!" snarled Harry in response.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Harry, "we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

Whispers quickly rose in volume to the point where Dumbledore had to clear his throat again to quieten everybody down before he could continue telling them about the tournament.

It was all reasonably interesting to Harry until he reached the bit about the death toll being the main reason it was cancelled.

"Bit of a deal breaker, that," Harry whispered to Sue, who unsuccessfully smothered a giggle.

So between the age restriction and the real possibility of death, Harry figured he would be looking somewhere else for his excitement this year, although there was bound to be enough stirred up by the tournament that he would not have to put too much effort into finding something distracting to do.

He thought his wish was answered when the Beauxbatons contingent arrived.

The extraordinary site of the flying horses and carriages was spectacular, but the insanely pretty female half of the foreign school's students were much more interesting.

"Beautiful," whispered Harry to himself as he faithfully recorded the whole spectacle on his Omnioculars.

Of course he wasn't silly enough to have them on him were a professor or over-zealous prefect might think they were inappropriate. Not only would that possibly get him a detention, but carrying them around and holding them up to his face all the time was too much like work.

It hadn't taken any effort at all to find a tripod and get a couple of older, more proficient students to help him set it up to record the general areas he was looking at. True, the spot they had picked on top of one of the towers would not give the same point of view as what he was seeing, but it should get a pretty good recording of the event anyway.

"Are you talking about the Abraxans, or the girls?" asked Sue from next to Harry, a slight edge to her voice.

"Since I don't know what Abraxans are, I can't really answer that," said Harry, not really paying attention.

"That's the name of that type of flying horse," explained Han.

"Oh, cool," said Harry, feeling slightly dazed as the students walked by.

"So which was it?" asked Sue sounding less than really interested.

The sudden ominous feeling that came down on Harry finally shook him from his contemplation of the girl walking next to what he assumed was a professor. The professor was least as big as Hagrid, but just did not seem to attract his attention quite as much as her average sized student.

"Can't it be both?" he asked, not sure what the right answer was, but now certain he was somehow in trouble.

He was saved by something suddenly poking up out of the lake.

"What's that?" he asked pointing dramatically, successfully turning Sue's attention away from him.

It turned out to be the mast of a large sailing ship that rose up out of the lake to dock at the school.

Luckily for Harry, the arrival of sour-puss-face Victor Krum, the famous international Quidditch player, grabbed the attention of the girls enough to have them forget whatever it was he had done wrong before.

For now at least.

#

"Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?" asked Professor Dumbledore calmly.

"No," said Harry honestly.

He had gotten a seventh year to put in half a dozen other names, paying the girl a sickle for each one and in turn charging a galleon from the owners of those names (although a couple he had put in just for a lark), but had never actually gotten around to putting his own name in.

Of course it would have been funny as hell if Peeves' name had come out.

"Ah, but of course 'e is lying!" cried Madame Maxime.

Snape was now shaking his head, his lip curling.

"Potter is far too untalented and lazy to have entered," the surly bastard said. "Although I would not put it past his arrogance."

Harry wanted to object, just on general principles, but there really wasn't any point.

#

"Well it's not all bad," said Harry. "I know half the house thinks I am a git for stealing Cedric's thunder, and the rest of the school believes I am too untalented and lazy to have entered, but think of it this way – I do get out of end-of-term exams!"

Hermione just clutched her hands to her head harder, all the time mumbling to herself in a despairing voice.

"It's okay, Hermione," reassured Harry brightly. "I'm sure I'll find something good to use my powers for one day."

#

Harry didn't really care for the press. They always seem to be trying to work people up into a frenzy about something or another. Sure, it was good to know what was happening around the world, but did they always have to make everything out to be so dramatic? Vernon used to get so upset by just the headlines that he would often throw the newspaper out without reading the actual articles, although Harry suspected the stupid bugger could not properly read anyway.

Of course Harry had some excellent personal experience of examples of over-dramatising something, with his cousin Dudley supplying an amazing variety of over-acting scenes for him to work with. Getting Dudley to do something he did not want to do, especially in a public place, was practically an invitation to a stage show.

"Bad touch! Bad Touch!" he screamed as Rita Skeeter grabbed his arm and tried to shove him into a cupboard for an impromptu interview. "Help – nasty woman is touching me!"

#

"Did you know the paper today has half a page dedicated to how being struck with the killing curse has resulted in your unfortunate mental retardation?" asked Sue the next morning at breakfast.

"Could explain a few things," agreed Harry, fighting Hedwig for a piece of bacon she had taken from his plate. There was plenty more on the table, but neither he nor his over-sized pet wanted to have to reach over to get it.

"Did you really have to make a scene practically accusing her of attempting to molest you, just because she wanted an interview and you didn't?"

"That's nothing. You should have seen what happened when that creepy old bugger, Oli-whatever, tried to get a hold of my wand!"


	2. The middle bit

#

In the Deepest, Darkest, Most Forgotten kitchen storage room of Hogwarts, the one where the gluten-free, decaffe, fat-free, reduced salt, and other horrible and silly food things Muggles invented where left to spontaneously decompose (or become sentient and run off), a lone elf sat slowly swaying on a threadbare rug surrounded by a silent ring of awestruck elves.

Unlike normal House Elves, this one was not dressed in the traditional clothing made of student's cast off odd and ends or repurposed Hogwarts linen. She sat in an almost resplendent gown made from only the best fashion accessories the elves had been able to forage from between the cushions, behind the wardrobes, under the mattresses, and hanging from the chandeliers and curtain rods of the many professors' dormitories that were scattered about the ancient castle.

Dobby thought she looked quite bizarre, which is an astounding thing coming as it did from an elf who was considered by most of his brethren as the weirdest elf to ever have existed simply because he did not think it was his calling to remain enslaved to a horrible family.

"And then I saids to him, the youngy master, _hic_ , I saids, 'you shouldn't be going potty in the potty plant!'" mumbled the elf on the rug before bursting into raucous laughter.

She stopped laughing long enough to take a huge swig out of a beer stein that was at least as big as her head, then laughed again, swaying so much Dobby thought she might actually spill the remaining contents of her mug this time.

It would never happen.

A tide of whispers rose from the circle of elves surrounding her. Dobby listened for a while trying to understand.

"I thinks this one is tied to yesterday's one about the gold fishies in the stew!" argued one elf loudly enough for Dobby to make out his words.

"No!" almost screamed another. "Is newey prophecy! Goldfishes finished when we served peach cobbler for elevensies today."

"I's been telling you it was meants for late night snacks!" angrily whispered yet another elf.

 _Professor boggle-eye's "Mind-lube" sure was powerful magic_ , thought Dobby as the crowd's anger rose and the philosophical discussion became heated enough to degenerate into fist fights (which wasn't really that much).

He had never seen anybody except the professor go so far into the Great Beyond, and he hadn't even been aware that elves could, but according to the other elves, this had been going on for days before a few of them started making connections between Winky the great's the ranting and events at the castle.

The trigger had been Quidditch being cancelled just a few hours after Winky had told them to "Make sure young master's toyses are put away properly!" or something to that effect.

Of course he initially thought she was just drunk, and suggested that as an explanation then promptly nearly been disembowelled with a spork for such a heretical idea. He was sure to keep that and many other dangerous ideas to himself for then on.

Not that everything Winky said was a prophecy.

"Hey, hey, don't fights," she suddenly shouted. "Fightsing is bad. I loves you guys! Don't fightses."

Immediately the brawl stopped.

"Praise the prophet!" intoned one of the elves, who eye was quickly swelling closed. "She bidsess us to show love to eachother!"

"Praise the prophet!" responded the others instantly.

"Praise the prophet!" said Dobby, slightly slower than the others and with a lot less conviction.

This place was strange, but it was better than being forced to watch his old masters try to make the beast with two backs (literally, using their wands and some poor goats, all because Lucius misunderstood something he read).

#

"So, when do we have to strip naked then?" asked Harry, interrupting Bagman's explanation of the rules.

He didn't expect to have to do so, but it was worthwhile taking the time to make sure. After all, it would be really annoying surviving facing a dragon only to be disqualified because the rules weren't explained properly.

"What?" asked Bagman, clearly confused as Harry's interruption derailed his well obviously well planned and practiced monologue.

"You said that we were only allowed to take our wands in," explained Harry. "So obviously we have to go in naked."

Cedric paled, and Flowers or Floor or whatever her name was looked outraged, as if she took the suggestion as a person insult, which she probably did; she seemed the type to take everything as a person insult regardless of the circumstances.

Sour-puss-face Krum didn't seem shocked or worried at all and Harry had the sneaking suspicion he probably would have no issue dropping his drawers and going for it au-naturale. His skin was probably tougher than the flimsy material of Harry's robes anyway. Bastard.

"Ah, no, Harry, you are allowed to keep all your current clothes on. I just meant you can't bring along any potions, magical swords or things of that nature, just what you have on you," explained Baggy, looking decidedly worried. "You have all been checked and are cleared to go, so nothing to worry about there, all right Harry?"

"Oh, good," said Harry, although he was suddenly of two minds about if seeing Floor naked would have been worth the embarrassment, especially if it was likely to be one of the very last things he ever saw before being consumed by an angry dragon. Mind you, he wished he had been allowed his normal robes with their magically deep and well stocked pockets. "Got it."

"Excellent. Now wait here and when your name is called come to the arena. Mr Diggory, you have five minutes to prepare. Good Luck everybody."

The champions split up, each going to their respective cots to mentally prepare. Harry immediately lay down and wondered if he could just stay in the tent and avoid the whole thing altogether. Nobody said anything about there being a time limit, so maybe he could wait for the dragon to fall asleep and then sneak in to pinch the fake egg?

"Why aren't you more nervous?" asked Cedric, taking a brief pause in his incessant pacing up and down the tent.

Harry was actually more nervous than he had ever been in his life, but it was not in his nature to pace or get carried away with worry.

Sour-puss-face and Floor were watching, apparently interested in his answer. Neither of them appeared overly-concerned, although Harry could see they were both trying very hard to appear completely cool and calm.

 _"Probably because they had both been told before-hand what to expect in the challenges, if some of the rumours going around the Hufflepuff common room are to be believed,"_ thought Harry.

Of course, some of those rumours also had them all having to participate in a last-man-standing Battle Royale, so a grain of salt was in order. Harry had never found it worth the energy to pay too much attention to gossip and rumours anyway.

"Ceddy," he said in an unnaturally calm voice, "I am so utterly terrified right now that I am beyond being able to show any sign of nervousness. I'd wet myself, but I think I have sweated out every drop of moisture in my body, making me especially good kindling for the dragon I imagine."

Sour-puss snorted, apparently amused, and Floor just rolled her eyes and tried to look even snootier, which was pretty much impossible. Cedric, gave a half-hearted grin.

"Do you have a plan?" Harry asked. "You sort of got the short end of the stick, with only a couple of minutes to think about it."

"Yeah," he said, pointedly looking around at the other competitors before leaning in closely to whisper to Harry. "I am going to try transfiguring a rock into something to distract the dragon while I run over and grab the egg."

Harry nodded in appreciation of Cedric sharing his strategy. It sounded like a good one, especially if he had just come up with it on the spot. It was a pity Harry's own transfiguration skills were nowhere near being up to copying the idea. He could probably make something that looked a bit dog shaped and would wobble along reasonably well, but he had never bothered mastering that particular set of transfiguration skills finding buying things that experts had made was a lot more efficient than making them himself.

"Ron's brother mentioned dragons don't like dogs much, but like to eat goats and sheep," he told Cedric, offering the only thing he could remember that might help. He nearly added 'people' to the list of things they liked to eat, but managed to stop himself in time. No point in making it any harder for his fellow 'puff than it was already going to be.

Cedric nodded thoughtfully. "What about you?"

"I was rather hoping to be able to summon it," said Harry hopefully. "The egg I mean, not the dragon. Summoning the dragon would just be silly."

Cedric shook his head and frowned. "It'll be protected from that," he said and was about to continue when his name was suddenly called from outside the tent.

"Good luck," said Harry.

"You too," replied Cedric before heading out to be the first one to face the challenge. Harry knew bugger all about Swedish Short-snout's, or any dragon really.

The next fifteen minutes were an exercise in mental agony as Harry was forced to listen to the crowd alternately cheering, yelling, and screaming while Cedric tried to get the egg from the brooding mother. The commentary was even worse, with nothing Bagman said doing anything to clarify what was happening.

"Look at that!" screamed the has-been professional Quidditch player turned commentator at school events. "It was almost all over then!"

When it finally finished, with Cedric somehow apparently able to get a hold of the egg without dying, Bagman's only recounting of the whole process was a weak "Well done lad!"

Floor looked slightly less composed as her name was called a little while later and she headed out. He felt a pang of compassion for her.

At least he thought it was compassion although it could have been something entirely different given the way she seemed to affect his and every other boy's senses, especially whenever she walked away from them, nose high in the air and robes swishes about her ankles enticingly.

Thinking about the French beauty being totally naked and running from a dragon temporarily distracted Harry and he had to force his thoughts back on track rather than daydreaming what could be his final moments away, no matter how pleasant that sounded.

Eventually he resorted to trying to use the mentally calming exercises he had learned to perform before going to sleep in order to lucid dream. They were surprisingly successful and he managed to get his heart-rate right down to something slightly lower than a galloping race-horse who had gotten into some of Hagrid's special chillies.

Bagman's commentary was even more useless the second time around and at times sounded like the man was trying to stage-whisper, over a megaphone, to an audience numbering in the hundreds.

When Sour-puss-face was called, Harry could probably have gone to sleep, but he forced himself to concentrate on coming up with at least a basic plan. He had his wand, three years of rather lacklustre magical education, and the clothes on his back to work with. Not much when facing a protective mother dragon he knew basically nothing about.

Reaching into his pocket, he took out the model of the Horntail to examine it for ideas and clues. It snapped at him and puffed a tiny flame while swinging its spiked tail, and slowly, a mad, insane idea bloomed, igniting hope in Harry's rather forlorn heart.

Finally, after yet another ten minutes of the overly excited commentators performance, it was his turn and he fought to keep his panic in check, but not suppress it totally, as he walked out of the tent and through the trees to the entrance of the enclosure.

At the other end, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, waited a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground.

Hundreds of people stared down at him from the stands around them, cheering, clapping, shouting words of encouragement or possibly derision – Harry couldn't really tell and he was far beyond caring.

Taking the small model of the dragon from his pocket, he petrified it and then carefully levitated it about half way to the other dragon, slowly dropping it to the ground.

"Engorgio!" he cast, fuelling the spell with all of the panic and fear that had been building up in him.

The model swelled, growing quickly to the size of a large dog.

He cast again and again, pumping everything he had into the spell until two Hungarian Horntails sat in the arena, one of them glaring at the newcomer with a strange, almost hungry look, the other, rather odd shaped one, stood unmoving - still petrified.

While Harry's enlargement charm had gotten significantly better over the years, it was still not quite perfect, leaving the model bulging oddly in places. At least it hadn't grown two heads or something equally strange, which was a possibility of charms going badly wrong.

For a moment he doubted the wisdom of his actions – after all, he now had two death dealing monsters to face instead of one.

 _"Oh well,"_ he thought to himself _. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and dead is dead whether it be by two dragons or one."_ Besides, coming up with another plan would be a lot of work and a complete waste of all the casting he had just done.

With that thought, he released his now full-size model and then dashed off to the side.

Immediately his model bellowed at the original, and a second later stood on its hind legs, flapping its deformed wings in an obvious challenge.

The effect on the original was much greater than Harry had hoped for, or expected. He was fairly certain Charlie's tales about dragons indicated they were very territorial, so putting two of them so close together was likely to start a fight, but he didn't expect the brooding mother to simple rush out and jump at his model.

As the two dragons clashed, Harry bolted for the nest, determined to grab the egg and get the hell out of there before his fake was torn apart – which was likely to happen in about two seconds.

Harry was a natural runner, and despite years of making a determined effort to suppress such a silly waste of energy, was actually fairly fast, but not fast enough for his liking.

Unfortunately, while he knew of at least one spell that could have helped him move faster, he had never had a reason to learn it and had to make do with his own natural muscles.

He heard the crowd screaming and Bagman suddenly going nuts, but the noise from the Dragons drowned out any meaning. The earth shook as the dragons clashed, but all he concentrated on was sprinting as fast as he could to the nest while staying as close to the wall of the enclosure and as far away from the beasts as possible.

Bits of rock and dust pummelled him, making him duck and weave as he ran. A tongue of flame licked out and scorched him too, but he kept moving forward, focussing on just getting to the damn egg.

It took him much less than a minute to reach the nest, where an obviously fake golden egg sat waiting on top of a pile of real eggs. He barely slowed down as he grabbed it, only to discover gold was a good conductor of heat and dragon eggs needed to be kept extremely warm, as he should have remembered from Tiny's pet project a few years ago.

"Ouch, shit, bugger, damn," he swore as he juggled the burning egg and continued to run. A cooling charm would have fixed it, but there was no way he was going to stop running until he was safely out of the arena.

He could see an exit where the dragon tamers were waiting, watching open mouthed at the ongoing spectacle of his fake encountering the real dragon. His way was clear.

Relief flooded Harry as he reached the exit. He had done it! A quick Aquamenti charm later and Harry was finally able to relax and turn to see what has left of his toy made-life-sized saviour.

It took a few moments for him to comprehend what has happening.

The first thing he realised was that the construct was surprisingly still intact, and was actually on the back of the original dragon, firmly holding the original's neck in its oversized jaws. Their intertwined tails thumped and swept the ground around them, turning boulders into pebbles and pulverising the ground where they struck while their wings flapped madly, sending clouds of dust and debris into the air. The real dragon occasionally let out a burst of flame that bathed the barricades of the arena in sheets of fire and caused the spectators to scream and duck for cover.

His next rather shocking realisation was that the two writhing dragons were not actually fighting - far from it, in fact.

The judges sat, Baggy holding the microphone limply as he watched speechlessly. Igor was outright laughing while Dumbledore appeared to be grinning. Big-Max was looking totally scandalised and the older Ministry stooge clutched his head in his hands in a way that reminded Harry of Hermione when she was at her most despairing.

"Huh, I wonder why the model was a male?" he asked nobody in particular as the spectators either screamed or laughed, depending on their disposition. "Well at least now I know why they are called Horn-tails."

#

Harry was surprised to find himself upset at the low score one of the judges awarded him. He wasn't expecting to beat the others, but this was ridiculous.

"Zero? How can you give me zero?" he demanded with more anger than he thought he would ever be able to summon over something he didn't think he cared about.

Hunchy (as Harry decided to name him) had scored him quite high and seemed to want to reward him for 'the best laugh he had in quite a while', Beardy said the fact the Dragons destroyed half the stadium and nearly killed a few people cost him some marks, Baggy gave him a perfect ten for some unfathomable reason, and the Ministry stooge of course gave him a middling mark like a typical politician trying to compromise for both sides, so he was actually tied for second place with Floor, who's attempt a putting the dragon to sleep had been ruined by Baggy apparently making a loud noise when he claims he was hit with a stinging-hex, but the zero really bothered him.

Big-max apparently blamed Harry for her student's failure and gave him a big fat zero.

Harry could probably have learned a great deal from those scores and the reasoning each of the judges gave for them, but as it was, he still just could not shake the idea of seeing Floor competing au-naturale from his mind.

If he had been inclined to even try to get rid of the idea.

He would have given her a ten, of course.

"You know what? Forget it!" he yelled. "This is most certainly not worth the effort."

With that he turned and left, but deep inside he felt his annoyance and anger growing into something more nasty and infinitely more worrying; motivation.

#

"You sees, Dobby," said the elf. "Exactlys likes the prophet says it would happens."

Personally Dobby thought it might have been just a bit of a stretch to say "and special little young master went to bed with nothing to eat while the master and missus went to make whoopy" could mean watching Harry Potter overcome the first task and score zero points from one of the judges, but he knew better than to voice his thoughts out loud and just nodded in agreement.


	3. A bit more of it

_The tank is running a bit dry, but here is what there is..._

#

"Mr Potter, if I hear that Merlin-be-damned awful noise, I will personally petrify you and put you in a room with it for the remainder of the day!" warned McGonagall as soon as Harry reached for the egg. "I can assure I will not be having any of that nonsense in my classes."

"Sorry, professor," said Harry, looking not the least bit remorseful. "Just trying to work it out – you know, so as to lessen the chance that I will get thagomised and DIE in the next task, like I nearly did in that arena with the MASSIVE death dealing dragon."

"The transfiguration classroom is hardly the appropriate place for that," she snapped back. "As you would be well aware."

"Well you did say we could work on our own once we finished the work you gave us!" protested Harry.

"You know well and good that opening up that blasted egg in here is not acceptable! You are not making it impossible for the other students to study, not to mention ruining my hearing. Now put it away and work on something else."

"Well, can I go to another room somewhere and study it, please?" pleaded Harry. "It's kind of important to me right now."

"Very well. Take that damn thing and be gone, but I had better not hear it at breakfast, lunch, or tea again, and you are not to open it in your or any other houses' common room or dormitory at all. Understood?"

"No problem – thank you," said Harry, stuffing the egg into his bag and heading for the door, trying hard not to let a smile creep onto his face.

"I still don't get what he is trying to achieve," Padma, the Ravenclaw Patil sister said, watching Harry leave.

"You have to understand that to Harry, even ten minutes of extra shut-eye is worth getting a spell he couldn't cast two years ago to work to block out the noise that thing makes," answered Susan. "He can't hear it so it doesn't bother him at all."

On the other side of her, Justin snorted.

"Ten minutes? He got out of an hour of Herbology with it and is banned from Divination after it shattered two crystal balls and Trelawney's glasses."

"What about potions?" asked the Ravenclaw.

"Harry hasn't bothered showing up. He claims the fumes down there are affecting his ability to compete."

"And professor Snape accepts that?"

"No, but the Headmaster apparently does. I think Harry bribed him or something."

 _In the office of the headmaster, Dumbledore quivered with excitement as he reached into the bag and withdrew another one of the fabulous sweets Harry had given him._

 _He had never heard of super-sweet-sherbet-lemon-drops before, but they were without a doubt the most terrific burst of sugary goodness he had ever encountered._

 _"Oh, my yes," he moaned as the sweet began dissolving in his mouth, sending an involuntary shudder of delight through his ancient frame._

"Yeah, I really can't see that," said Padma dismissively.

"Backfired on him in Care of magical Creatures, though. Hagrid must have had one or two under his belt to calm his nerves before class or something because he started singing along with it!"

#

"So Harry, who are you taking to the ball?" asked Sue with so much innocence it instantly made the normally trusting Harry (because trusting someone is a lot easier than trying to figure out what their angle might be) extremely wary.

"I was not planning on taking anybody," said Harry, carefully setting aside the scroll he was pretending to read to focus on Sue. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason," the girl answered, a bit too quickly.

Harry knew he should ask, or at least think about it, but all he could see was a whole lot of trouble.

Besides, he had suddenly developed a real fear of the person he most wanted to ask – Floor, or Flew, or whatever the hell her Frenchy name was.

Just seeing her made him feel strange. His heart beat a bit faster, his breath caught at every movement she made, and worse yet, he felt compelled to not be so lazy, as she obviously did not appreciate his normal behaviour!

That absolutely terrified Harry (even after he verified he was not having a mild heart attack despite nearly matching the list of symptoms Petunia always ran through with Vernon when he over exerted himself), as he clearly recalled one of the many shapes the Boggart Professor Lupin repeatedly exposed him to had taken – and it wasn't the Trelawney-dressed-in-scanty-clothing one.

"I thought about auctioning it off," he said, casually throwing the egg clue up into the air and then catching it, "but I couldn't really decide what it was worth."

Several younger year girls had suggested they would be amiable to trading favours for the opportunity to attend, but every time Harry started to think about things he could get them to do (like do his homework or take a detention for him), he quickly got caught in bit of a mental guilt loop.

Moon-girl told him she would only go if he learned to dance some strange thing she probably made up she called the Rumba, and Hermione was trying to be all mysterious about who she was going with. She didn't seem to realised that Harry wasn't really that fussed about her secret.

Now he was stuck, because no matter who he asked, he was likely to upset somebody else who expected him to ask them.

He was also wise enough to admit to being shallow enough to worry about taking one girl only to find out a different girl would have been a better option. So the obvious path was to ask nobody and let it sort itself out, that's how things usually worked out for him anyway.

With luck the situation would be resolved by the girls themselves and involve a large toddler pool filled with jelly and lots of wrestling – at least that's how things happened in those 'training videos' Lockhart was selling, so it must have some basis in truth, right?

He didn't see the absolute horrified look on Sue's face as she contemplated what Harry could possibly get for the right to be his date.

#

"Potter," the mad professor practically growled, "you next."

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "Imperio!"

It was the most wonderful feeling. Harry felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in his head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. He stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching him.

And then he heard Mad-Eye Moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of his empty brain: Jump onto the desk…jump onto the desk…

"What, and ruin this feeling?" asked Harry.

"Jump now!" insisted the voice.

"Nah," he answered, far too relaxed to bother with something so un-lazy as physically performing a feat that taxing.

"Look at that you lot!" yelled Moody. "Potter fought it! He fought it and beat it!"

"Well done," whispered Zack as Harry returned to his spot and Moody continued to rant. "That was pretty impressive."

"Not really," said Harry casually. "I think I'm still under; Feels good."

The look on Zack's face would have been really funny, if Harry had been in any condition to care.

#

"So how are you going with figuring out the egg clue, lad?" asked Moody after the rest of the class had made their usual scampering escape from his classroom.

Moody's his fake magical eye for once was staying in place as it stared at Harry unblinkingly.

"Yeah, good," answered Harry uncertain if the nut-job of a professor could somehow tell he was lying, or would just automatically assume it, since that is what Harry would do.

He hadn't actually made any effort himself, but that was beside the point. Tiny seemed to know what the noise was saying, so he figured he could probably go ask about it later if nothing else easier came up.

"Excellent!" exclaimed the insane teacher. "Make sure to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

"Okay, sure – thanks for the advice," said Harry, making a break for the door while he could.

In Harry's opinion, there was something decidedly wrong with the Defence against the Dark Arts instructor.

Then again, taking his other three years experience into account, that was actually the normal for them. Relieved, Harry relaxed and went to his next class, leaving a frowning professor watching him through the walls behind.

#

"Ravenclaws suck," announced Harry as he plonked himself down into his favourite chair in the common room and dropped a booklet on the low table in front of it.

"That's an unfounded rumour of a generalisation that should not be repeated without just cause," said Luna, who was apparently completely unaware she was once again in the wrong common room.

"I challenged them to try and find out anything about this blasted egg," Harry explained, not even trying to work out what Luna meant, "but instead of getting the clue, I got this hundred page treatise on the damn thing!"

"Sounds about right," said Ern, picking up the book and flicking through it. "Must have something in here that will help, though."

"Probably," admitted Harry bitterly. "Problem is I can't understand half of the words they have used, let alone what they mean when applied to this annoying, oversized breakfast option."

Ernie laughed and passed the booklet onto Justin.

"I don't suppose Hermione...?"

"Not talking to me," explained Harry. "Apparently her helping me look up spells and things is perfectly okay, but getting a whole house to research the second clue is cheating or something. I'll never understand that girl."

"She might have a point," said Ernie. "It hardly seems fair."

"Fair, smair," dismissed Harry sulkily. "I wasted a lot of time and energy convincing those 'claws to do this-"

"You mean you bribed them with your stash of sugar quills and ButterBeer," interrupted Ern.

"-and I am not happy with the result."

"Seems a bit out of character for you, Harry," said Sue thoughtfully, opening the book to have a look. "What's suddenly got you all riled up like this?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer but then stopped, realising he didn't actually have an answer that would not require a lot more explanation about his deep seated anger caused by the dismal score from the first task.

"It' the Wrackspurts," said Luna sadly. "It's always the Wrackspurts."

"Yeah, them," agreed Harry.

In truth he was starting to get a bit annoyed at how this competition was affecting him. It should have been a great time for slacking off and having some fun with it, but he was finding himself getting a bit frustrated with the whole thing.

Well he knew what to do when something frustrated him; Figure out why it made him feel that way, then once he understood it, ignore it.

That was a more solid plan than any other, for the moment.

#

"Wait a moment, it kills things that don't have souls too?" asked Harry, uncharacteristically drawing attention to himself in the class where most people tried very hard to avoid being singled out for any sort of recognition.

"It kills everything instantly!" yelled the unstable Dark Arts professor excitedly. "Why do you think it is so feared?"

"Well I thought it just killed people," said Harry, looking very shocked and shaken at the corpse of the enlarged spider.

"And how is that less frightening, eh?" asked the professor.

Harry was too shaken to even think about following his normal pattern of just letting things slide and answered without thought.

"Because pretty much every other of the more powerful spells I have ever heard of have been extremely specific to the point of ridiculousness," he said. "I mean there is a specific spell for repulsing spiders, and even a special spell for levitating human bodies, so I expected a spell that kills something instantly would be a bit less general purpose and more of a 'one of a kind' sort of thing."

"And what about the Imperius Curse then?" asked the professor pointedly.

"Well that didn't really seem that powerful," mumbled Harry distractedly.

"No that powerful?" screamed the professor incredulously. "Not that powerful? One of the most terrifying spells ever devised, a spell that will see you sent to Azkaban for life if you cast it, a spell that could make you kill all your friends and family with smile, not that powerful?"

"Well , yeah, I mean it was pretty easy to get around," he said dismissively. "Does this killing one stop after it has killed the first living thing it hits, or does it keep going through until it runs out of steam or something?"

It took a few moments of silence before he took his eyes off the dead spider to look at his professor and realise instead of answering the man was just standing there staring at him with bulging eyes while the rest of the class sat with baited breath, waiting to see what was going to happen.

He really hoped this was not going to cause him trouble.

#

"So rumour has it," said B1.

"That you managed to make Mad eye Moody's eye pop out of his head," finished B2 as the twins came up alongside Harry who was making his way back to the dorms after spending a complete waste of sleeping time scrubbing trophies for awards that nobody cared about given to people that nobody remembered anyway.

Well except for his Dad's award, that was pretty special. His mum probably had a few in there as well but after a while Harry had gotten bored and put himself into a trance to numb the pain.

"I wish," said Harry. "That might have been worth a detention. What are you two doing up and out anyway?"

"Running low on snacks," said B2.

"Been selling them to the Frenchies," added B1. "It seems they can't get quality sweets like ours over in their snooty, upper class school. Have to do it all on the QT though. Apparently they don't want the each other to know they are pigging out on pretty much anything we can get them that is more than about 80 percent sugar."

"So we have been making a killing," said B2. "Tried selling them to Drumstang first, but they don't have a hankering for the sweeter things in life the way those Frenchies do."

"Try blood pops," said Harry. "Make it a challenge to their masculinity or something."

"Brilliant!" they both said at exactly the same time.

"So, I doubt that's why you decided to escort me to my dorm," said Harry leadingly. "What's going on?"

"No easily fooled are you, young Harry?" said B2.

"Always took him for a man who know the what's what," agreed B1

"Yeah let's just cut to the chase, fellows," said Harry cutting off what probably would have been an amusing series of buttering-up comments that he was just too tired to process right now.

"Just after the inside scoop, matey," said B2.

"Feeling confident about the second task?" asked B1.

"Got your clue all sorted and have a plan?" asked B2.

"Sort of," said Harry without much conviction.

"Excellent!" they intoned together before stopping to give each other a high five. "We're off to see man about a bet then!"

"Wait, what? I just said I sort of had it figured!" Harry protested.

The twins cast a knowing glance at each other.

"Harry, Harold, Harrikins, your 'sort of' is a lot better than most people's 'definitely'" explained B1.

"Yep, most people might say you are a lazy, good for nothing git who wastes his potential on trivial things that don't matter and who will never amount to much," said B2.

"Hey!" protested Harry.

"But not us! We know a good bet when we see it, so we're off to the book makers!"

"See ya!"

"Wouldn't want to be ya!"

Harry knew he should protest or argue or just plain deny their accusations, but at that point in time he was much more interested in the fact the twins could somehow make a bet on the Tournament.

"Hey guys, wait up a second..."

#

Harry got the distinct feeling he was being watched, again.

Lately it seemed he could never settle into a deep mediative trance, which other less enlightened members of his house called 'sleeping sitting up with his eyes closed', without somebody deciding it would be a good time to discuss something with him.

Of course it had taken a while for some people to understand that he was not actually listening to them while they jabbered on, mistaking his automatic generic 'ums' and 'ahs' as meaningful communication, but it had happened so often that Harry was now starting to develop the habit of rousing from his trance instead of blissfully missing out and possibly later being blamed for giving advice he most definitely did not mean to. Who in their right mind could mistake a snore or slight dropping of his head for agreement or any sort of comment? People were nuts.

Sure enough, as he cracked open one of his eyes, someone was standing patiently in front of the table he had claimed as his, waiting for him to acknowledge them in some way.

Actually, it was two 'somebodies'; Justin and Ernie.

Regretfully, Harry put down the book he had been pretending to study and switched the illusion of eyes on his glass (Version six) off.

"So we need your help," said J.

"Okay," answered Harry.

"As you know, or should know since you showed up to the first couple of them, we have been taking dance classes for the Yule ball, and most of us are not much chop at it."

"True," said Harry vaguely.

"So we figured that you must have worked out a way around learning to dance, and with the help of a couple of guys from the other houses, we figured out you are probably planning on using either one, more likely or a combination, of the many dance-based curses we found out about."

"Okay," said Harry.

In actual fact he had just decided not to go to the ball, since even though it sounded like something that might be interesting, the effort involved was way too high a price. This solution to 'dance dilemma' was an interesting idea though; almost something he might have thought up himself had he needed to.

"The problem is we don't know how to go about getting the curse placed onto our shoes, so we have to ask you for help."

"Not your shoes," said Harry absently as his mind quickly went over the possibilities. Obviously it would be a bit more complex than anything he developed before, but he had learned enough to see that it was possible, and he definitely knew the right people for getting it done. "You want it on something you can easily turn off, for when you don't want to dance, and be able to take it off without making it obvious, just in case something goes wrong."

"Good point," mumbled J. "If you can get us this, we can help you get a date, since we know you haven't bothered to say anything to anyone yet, which is bordering on rude."

"That would be convenient," said Harry. "Who? Not one of those terrifying birds from the Frenchy school thing I hope. No deal if that's what you arranged!"

"Only you would think a gorgeous girl from Beauxbaton is terrifying, Harry," laughed Ernie.

"Yeah well you haven't had a glimpse of a future married to a woman who can get you do to anything she wants you to!" argued Harry.

Ernie's eye's suddenly glazed over slightly as he stared off into the distance. "Yeah, that'd be terrible," he said quietly.

"But anyway," interrupted J." You grossly overestimate our influence and abilities. There is no way we could convince any of those heavenly creatures to give us the time of day, let alone go to the ball with one of us. Not even the famous Harry Potter stands a chance, sorry. So we asked around and discovered, not-surprisingly, some of the Ravenclaws are more interested in spending the night reading rather than dancing, and had not committed to going with anybody. Megan, said she would go with you, as a favour to Susan, who owes us for helping Hannah with a problem she was having with... well I guess it doesn't really matter and probably should not be repeated anyway. Bottom line, help us with dancing and Megan will go with you and be a nice date for you."

"Brill. Get yourselves a pocket watch," said Harry. "You can discretely press the button to activate or deactivate the curse and we can charm it to let you pick which dance to use depending on what music is playing, unless you found a curse that does that anyway?"

"No, but we could keep looking," said J.

"Good plan," said Harry, already figuring out how to convince the pair to do most of the work that would be needed to get this side-project on track. "Get two each, because you need a spare for the enchanting as sometimes it fails and could possibly set fire to it, as I found out much to the detriment of many items including several pairs of shoes and one rather nice pillow. Anyway, write down the dances you want to do and the curse or curses you can find that might be applicable. Keep it simple; just two or three that are most likely going to happen, like a waltz. You'll need to throw in a galleon or two to cover the cost of getting the senior I have in mind to do the enchanting too."

"Excellent," said Ernie. "No more dance lessons!"

"Good. Now, just one other thing. Who is Megan?"

#

"Harry we have to talk!" shouted Hermione, bursting into the dorm.

Ernie gave a sort of muffled cry and dived back under his blankets, not that he had properly gotten out from under them anyway, but apparently having a girl see him in his nightclothes was too great a shock for him.

"You can't keep making those Dance Amulets!"

Harry yawned and gave a stretch, postponing worrying about Hermione's antics until after he had a chance to decide if they were actually worthy of such effort.

"Harry, this is important!" ranted Hermione in her most annoying 'bossy' voice.

He knew she was just worried and was trying to help, but sometimes she really just needed to chill out a bit - Although she did look quite cute all riled up with passion and so fierce.

"Why not?" asked Harry, flicking his wand to cast a rather complex cleaning spell on himself.

He really would have preferred lounging in the bath for a few hours, especially the huge, pool-like one the prefects got to use whenever they wanted. It had been pure cruelty to show him that, but his head of house, Flowers, got some sort of silly idea in her head that if Harry saw the advantages being a prefect and a role model brought, he might put a bit of effort into at least appearing more of a traditional Hufflepuff.

It had not even come close to working, since Harry was still quite immune to outside influences trying to manipulate him into doing real work, but an ex-girlfriend of one of the Slytherin prefects gave him the password to the glorious sanctuary as some sort of revenge thing that he was not going to even try to understand, and now he could make use of it any time he wanted.

Still, the quick clean spell was handy to have when you just needed a quick freshen up, and since Hermione had seen it fit to invade the boys dorm to lecture him, he didn't think he'd get a chance to take a real bath before breakfast anyway.

"Magic is not like science, it follows very different rules and is a lot more chaotic," she continued as Harry used a switching spell to swap his pyjamas for the standard class robes. "There are complex interactions that involve Motivation and hundreds of other factors that even the most brilliant of Wizards like Dumbledore have barely began to understand..."

Well, Harry's standard robes, not the actual standard ones. He needed all the expanded pockets and other charms he had accumulated in order to make his day as simple as possible. The standard robes might as well have been made by a Muggle and didn't even keep the draft out!

"You know all those Muggle stories about Genie's in lamps and being careful what you wish for? They are all based on real events in the magical world!" Hermione almost yelled as Harry stuck his wand in his mouth and mumbled a teeth-cleaning and breath freshener spell; which was quite a bit harder to do than it sounded, since casting spells with a wand in your mouth is not something people normally do.

Idly he wondered if you were meant to cast it on someone else and then have them cast it on you in return in a sort of mutual cleaning ritual or something.

That would be so weird.

"You have to be careful with magic or it will turn around and bite you!" Hermione announced. "You can't just take it for granted and abuse it without paying the price."

Harry lifted each foot up in turn and his socks and shoes shot out from under his bed and slid into place, the laces finally tying themselves neatly. He smiled recalling how tricky that bit of magic had seemed not so very long ago.

"This dancing curse thing you have been making for the boys is going to be a disaster. Something is going to go wrong and people might get hurt. Curses are called that for a reason!"

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but paused as Wayne sleepily pushed passed them on his way to the loo, wearing nothing but the skin he was born in.

Hermione squeaked and turned away, blushing brightly.

"'Scuse me," mumbled Wayne, eyes still pretty much closed and totally oblivious to the presence of a girl in their room.

"Something always goes wrong," said Harry ignoring his often naked roommate and taking a moment to wave his wand over his hair to make it slightly less of a nightmare.

He dropped his wand into the special pocket on his robes and then clapped loudly three times. His bed obediently reassembled itself into a perfect picture of 'bedness'. The sheets were tucked in with military precision and the blankets lay so smooth and flat they looked fake. Even his pillow fluffed itself into an absolutely gorgeous model of a cushion.

He wasn't allowed to get House elves to make his bed, and had been forbidden from casting spells to do it, but nobody had told him he was not allowed to use charmed bedcovers that had been taught to make themselves; not yet anyway.

"Exactly," said Hermione, recovering from her close brush with male nudity with remarkable speed. "So you see the problem. The more you use it to try and 'cheat the system', the more likely it is that it will turn on you."

"Interesting idea," said Harry, taking out his wand to summon his bag from wherever he had left it. "I guess I should try not to exploit my magical ability so much then?"

"That's right!" said Hermione. "There are loads of anecdotal evidence to suggest..."

Harry flicked his wand to open the door as he lead Hermione out of the room, fighting hard not to let the grin he really wanted to put on from showing while Hermione continued talking, ignoring everything contradicting her that had just occurred right in front of her eyes.

Behind them, Wayne suddenly yelled in outrage as reality and realisation caught up with him.

#

"Seriously, I don't get it," asked Harry, causing Moody's real eye to start twitching. "It just doesn't seem that bad."

"What can you possibly not understand, you daft donkey?" screamed Moody. "It causes pain so intense that it'll drive you insane in the blink of an eye!"

"Yeah, but it's not permanent, right? I mean unless it's held on you too long."

"What are you blathering on about?"

"Well you've got a lot better chance of recovering than if you had your legs burnt off or something," said Harry. "I mean the human body can only generate a set amount of pain and after that it makes no difference, so something like getting burned alive is going to be just as painful, but with the added shock of physical damage."

"Or if you had your guts pulled out of your eye sockets," added Ernie.

"Or had to watch someone eating part of your brain," said Justin, getting into the spirit of the conversation. "Surely that would be worse to experience!"

"And I mean you could probably have the memory of the Crucio Obliviated away, right?" asked Harry innocently. "So you might know it happened, but not recall the actual sensation."

" 'Corse there's some people that like pain," added Kev the Ravenclaw. "They might not even object to having it cast on them."

Moody was incoherent, his mouth just opening and closing without any sound coming out.

"I reckon they broke him this time," whispered Sue to Hannah.

"Serves him right. What kind of a fool thinks he can out-gross a bunch of teenage boys who have about as much empathy as a dead rock?"

"Get out!" screamed Moody, hurling the books from his desk as he finally recovered some semblance of wit. "Out, out, out!"

The girls wasted no time rushing for the door, their books already packed in their bag and ready even before the old Auror had started losing the plot, just as Harry had promised.

#

"Harry, why aren't you dancing like all the other boys?" asked one of the girls from one of the other houses, at least that's what Harry thought about her. "I've only seen you take a few dances so far while your housemates have barely sat down."

In truth, he had no idea who she was. The effort the girls had put into making themselves look, not necessarily better as such, but _different_ to their normal appearance baffled Harry, and almost managed to stir a slight feeling of guilt at his own almost complete lack of effort.

True, his robes now shone with a magnificent bottle-green shimmer than somehow matched the colour of his eyes, his hair was practically glued to his head by several bottles of magical hair cream, and he was sporting a very elegant bowtie over an elaborate ruffled shirt, but it was not as if he had put any real effort into his look – he just asked someone who knew something about this sort of thing and then followed their instructions and suggestions.

The girls though, that was a different story.

With gowns that defied description and incorporated more magic than Harry had ever seen in any wizarding clothing (including his own), he could not possibly tell what house the questioner asker had come from, and without that clue and with the different often exotic hair styles and makeup they were wearing, he had absolutely no chance of recognising somebody he was not very familiar with already.

For all he knew she might not even be a Hogwarts native.

It was something he decided he needed to work on. Ignorance in anything when he had possibly the greatest collection of magical knowledge in the world within his reach seemed really wasteful, and Harry hated waste.

Possibly he could charm his glasses to label the people he was looking at with their name, a sort of heads-up display like in those science fiction movies Dudley liked to watch.

Magic was useful for things like that.

"Oh trust me," he said, pausing to take a small sip from an ornate goblet. "I am dancing on the inside!"

In reality he had worked out that even with the curse doing all the work of knowing how to dance, it still took physical effort. Several of the more enthusiastic boys had been forced to quit and leave when their energy reserves flagged too dramatically, but they seem to have had fun while it lasted.

For a couple of unlucky fellows, the charmed objects malfunctioned leaving them struggling to make do with only their own pre-learned skills or what little they had managed to pick up while cursed or to excuse themselves. They only had themselves to blame of course, either not taking Harry's advice about multiple charmed objects seriously or not understanding the magic well enough to pace themselves.

All in all, perhaps because of these issues, it seemed like there were a lot more females present than males, and for some reason a significant number were crowded around where Harry and his date sat.

"You dork," laughed the girl, slapping him lightly on his arm in an overly familiar manner that sent Harry's heart racing just a little bit faster and made his smile just a bit larger.

"Do you know what people used to believe a Dork actually was?" asked Harry's date in a tone that seemed pleasant and conversational, but somehow held a sharpness to it.

The questioner looked slightly confused and opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as Megan continued speaking.

"The myth is that the true meaning of the word refers to the sexual organ of a male whale," she declared, staring intently at the questioner, who blushed. "I hope you weren't referring to my date in that context."

Several of the other girls gave little laughs or squeaked as they tried not to laugh. The questioner seemed suddenly very uncomfortable and a bit lost for words.

"Harry," said Megan, turning towards him. "I think I would like to go for a breath of fresh air outside."

"Okay," said Harry, automatically rising to his feet out of politeness as Megan stood up. She paused for a moment, looking at him as if considering something. "Would you care to join me?"

For a moment, for just a split second, Harry considered declining, since randomly walking around was most definitely not his thing, but then something inside his brain started screaming abuse in an unmistakable warning tone and he wisely chose to give it the attention it deserved.

"I would be delighted," he said, holding out his arm for Megan to take.

She smiled warmly and took his arm, and afterwards Harry could never really recall exactly what they chatted about as they made their way through a garden Harry had no recollection of ever seeing before.

"I am rather impressed that you never once managed to accidentally touch any of the girls you danced with in what could be considered as even a slightly inappropriate manner," said Megan, once again using far too many words to say what she really meant, leaving Harry not completely sure he understood properly.

Not that it matter, really.

"Thanks," he said, picking what was undoubtedly the easiest and safest answer.

"I thought all boys our age had only one thing on their mind," she said. "But you have been the perfect gentleman all night despite all those girls practically throwing themselves at you."

"Thanks again," said Harry, absolutely dumfounded by her words.

Throwing themselves at him? As far as he knew they were just all talking together as friends, since there were not enough boys left dancing to accommodate all the girls.

She stopped walking and turned to face him.

"You are not going to hit on me at all are you?" she asked with a thoughtful and slightly unsure look on her face.

It was unusual for Harry to let anything fluster him, even the most extreme situations. Not even this completely unexpected turn of events could cause him to panic and waste valuable energy, although his heart did start to race a bit faster.

"Should I?" he asked, bravely taking a step closer to her.

"Most definitely," she said, moving her face closer to his.

#

"Potter!" screamed Greasy, several very enjoyable minutes later.

The sudden interruption made Harry literally jump back and draw his wand with a speed he had never imagined he could achieve.

"What do you think you are doing?" demanded the professor as he stomped through the rosebushes towards the alcove where Megan and Harry had been snuggled.

"Why am I not surprised I'd have to explain it to you..." began Harry, rather more than simply annoyed by the sudden turn of events.

The number of detentions Harry achieved over the course of the next twenty minutes as he decided to take out all his recent frustrations on the surly professor set a record even the fabled Marauders would have been proud of and became the single most widely told story of the whole tournament outside of the actual tasks themselves.

Not that Harry intended attending even one detention, no matter how well deserved.

#

The second task was not going at all well.

It was obvious from the faces of the judges that they had not expected Harry to just refuse to go into the lake.

"I inventoried all my things just before coming here," Harry said. He carefully did not mention that the really weird elf, Dobby, actually did all the work. "There is nothing I really care about missing; so I'm done! You can keep whatever it was you took."

"You do realise you will fail the task?" asked the huge woman Harry still had a problem thinking of as Madame Maxine rather than just Big-Max, but Tiny had asked him to be a bit more polite, and since the half giant was kind enough to explain the Mermaid's song from the egg to Harry, it was only fair to make the small effort of using her proper name. Well, sometimes at least.

Drumstang's Headmaster, Igor (who really didn't fit that name as he had no hunch or lisp), seemed entirely too pleased at the prospect, while Baggy, looked quite ill and panicky and the Ministry stooge had a self satisfied smug look plastered on his mug.

Beardy looked his usual 'professional' self, but harry got the feeling he was quite amused. That probably wouldn't last very long.

"Yeah, but I really can't compete against the other Champions, who are a damn site more skilled than me, so it's a fair cop," agreed Harry.

Baggy went into a bit of fit, stumbling and bumbling while apparently trying to convince Harry to change his mind and have a go.

"Mr Potter," interrupted Dumbledore. "Perhaps you should not look at what, you are missing, but rather whom..."

Harry stopped for a moment, a confused look on his face until he suddenly opened in eyes in apparent comprehension. He searched the crowd, looking for his friends. One by one he ticked them off, until only one person was missing.

"Sue? You took Sue?"

None of the judges said anything, possibly bound by the rules of the competition.

Harry was lazy, but he wasn't stupid. He was not a great intellect like Hermione, or a clever strategist like Ron, or even a randomly brilliant mind like Moongirl, but he was extremely practical, and quite cunning and while he had in fact previously researched spells that could probably be used to avoid drowning (he had been looking for spells that would save him from the effort of having to breathe all the time, but there were too many downsides to such a permanent fix, like having to put sign on his chest saying "I am not dead" every time he went to sleep anywhere), he knew his magical skill was not up to a level to make a recovery effort likely to succeed – and he hated wasted effort.

He removed his wand and quickly cast two charms, the second of which astounded three of the judges, Dumbledore having apparently already been aware Harry could produce a corporeal Patronus.

Harry whispered a message to the glowing animal and it suddenly raced off.

"Where is it going?" asked Igor suspiciously, after he had shaken off his amazement that a seemingly average to almost incompetent fourteen year old boy could casually do such complex magic.

"To the place where people usually go when they discover a person has been kidnapped and is in danger," said Harry a bit flippantly as the effect of the cheering spell he cast on himself to enable summoning the Patronus kept his spirits high.

While the other judges looked confused and began demanding answers, Dumbledore no longer looked amused.

It was only a few minutes later that a group of very eager looking Aurors being led by an irate Madam Bones stormed into the grounds and over to the judges table.

The yelling and arguing went on for quite a while before four Aurors raced off and retrieved Sue from the bottom of the lake, while Madam Bones continued to 'tear the judges a new wand holder' as Justin later rather confusingly put it.

Unfortunately the Aurors encountered some resistance from the Merefolk and a bit of a battle broke out. The gouts of water and flying spears added some much needed excitement to the event for the spectators, who had really been equally spoiled and traumatised by the events of the first task. It got really exciting when the giant squid stumbled into the fray and began thrown anybody and everybody it could get a hold of into the air before pelting them with fish.

Harry took the opportunity to sit down and get comfortable of course, and only got up when Sue looked like she was going to kick him.

"I volunteered to be your hostage and you don't even bother to come and get me?" she demanded in an angry rant that Harry could not be certain was real or fake, or maybe half of each.

"I really didn't know how to do it myself," Harry found himself explaining. "And I figured these guys would do a much better job."

"So it wasn't that you just decided to take a nap then?" she asked.

"Definitely not," said Harry earnestly, earning a slight softening of her glare before adding cheekily. "Far too much noise out here."

His reassurances did not go down well.

#

"There is something I have been wondering about," said Susan, standing rather stiffly in the doorway of the long vacant class room where Harry had been quietly contemplating the colour of the darkness.

Well, that was the excuse he was going to use if anybody had asked where he had disappeared to. It was something Moongirl had said once and had stuck in his mind. In fact he had been sulking. Not that he would admit it, even to himself, not this time.

"How in the world did you find me?" he asked, taking his marvellous cloak off. "And I thought you weren't talking to me, like the rest of the house."

"I just asked the Twins, they always seem to know where you are. Also they said they have a bag of gold for you or something. They might have been joking but I can never tell with those two. Anyway, I thought about you not coming to get me from the lake, and got a bit angry..."

"A bit?" he asked allowing a hint of sarcasm into his voice.

"Okay, a lot," admitted Sue. "Especially after the Ball fiasco and the number of house points you lost us in your tiff with Professor Snape."

"Not totally my fault," said Harry. "How was I supposed to know the stupid House point thing could go into negatives? Once it hit zero there should have been nothing else to lose."

"Yes, well, that is not what I have been thinking about. I was wondering how it came to be that the Aurors got to Hogwarts so quickly after you sent your message."

"Er, what do you mean?" ask Harry innocently. "That's their job, right? To come running when someone needs it. It's not like it takes a long time to Apparate anywhere."

"Harry, I have lived with my Aunty for as long as I can remember. She is pretty much my mother, and in all that time, do you think she hasn't told me stories about how hard it is to get people to do their jobs, or how she misses being out in the field actually doing things instead of sitting behind a desk trying to get other people to work?"

"Er..."

"Well she has, and one of the stories I distinctly recall hearing repeated is how atrociously long it usually takes the department to respond to a call for help from an outsider."

"Er.."

"And yet, miraculously, not only did a whole team of Aurors get here with five minutes, but my Aunt herself was leading them."

"She's your guardian isn't she? Why wouldn't she come immediately?"

"Because she is the head of magical law enforcement and is expected to stay behind to organise and control things in the event of emergencies, not rush off on what could have been some wild goose chase reported by a fourteen year old boy!"

"I'm not sure what you are getting at," said Harry. "And I am hardly just any fourteen year old. Your Aunty knows me too remember, after that big thing with Rat-boy earlier in the year."

"I think you know exactly what I am saying, Mr Potter. I think the only way my aunty could have gotten here so quickly was because she was already waiting, with a full team of Aurors on standby."

"Ummm..."

"And the only way that could have happened is if you had not only worked out what the clue was, but also figured out well in advance that I was going to be taken as your 'hostage', and sent her a message; several messages in fact, I'd warrant. It must have taken a lot of work to convince her to get something like that organised."

"Don't know what you are talking about," said Harry, unable to keep a grin off his face.

"Funny, that's exactly what she said when I asked her about it," said Sue, taking a few steps into the room to stand closer to Harry.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," she said. "I wouldn't want to ruin your act for you, but I did just want you to know that I know."

"You're barmy," said Harry weakly.

Sue just smiled.

"Come on," she said, taking his arm. "Enough sulking, let's go get lunch."

"Not sure that's a great idea," said Harry. "I'm not really that popular at the moment."

"Don't be silly," said Sue, pulling him along. "Almost everybody is over their anger now."

"Almost everyone?"

"Well all of us that count anyway."

"That makes me feel oh so much safer."

"Well if popularity is your concern, you'll be happy to know that the Gryffindors absolutely love you right now."

"Should have left you drown," he mumbled as she walked him out of the room.

#

"See, is just as Winksie says," shouted the elf heatedly. "The dirty underthings needed washing!"

"No, no, no! It's the calling to dinner one," screamed another, waving a tea towel around like a whip. "Mr Harry Potter sirs called the Aunty, just like in the story where the young master was sent to call his mother!"

"Hows can dinner mean going under the water?"

"Yous is all wrong! It's been the parable of the bath time ducky little master tried to drown!" growled out a third, brandishing a massive ladle like a sword.

Dobby shook his head and just kept on with the dishes. The only good thing to come out of all this nonsense was at least he had more than enough work to do, since so much of the other elves' time was getting spent arguing about which of Winky's ramblings predicted whatever event had most recently taken place.

Sometimes he was sure the elves were only one step away from trying to make the events they derived from her often incoherent utterings happen...


	4. The last bit

_Yes, I know it's been a while, and it is not a big chapter either, but Harry has infected me and I am struggling to do anything productive! Well anyway, here is the final part of year four. Lets hope it is not another five years for year five to force itself out of my head and onto the page..._

#

"Did you know the paper today has half a page dedicated to why you are a sick pervert and how dozens of Aurors had to rush to the school to stop you from abducting one of the other students for your depraved revenge at having to compete for the Cup rather than just being given it?" asked Sue at breakfast.

"Would that have worked?" asked Harry after a thoughtful moment.

"I really don't see Igor Hunchy agreeing to give you the cup in exchange for a Hogwarts' student, no," said J before hastily adding "Sorry Sue."

"Yeah, I think he is more the kind to give extra points if you offed the other hostages in order to win," agreed Ern.

"No, I mean getting them to give me the Cup and then have a new tournament with just the other three contestants so that I didn't have to actually compete against them?" clarified Harry.

"No idea. Possibly," said Ernie.

"Hmm, should of thought of that. Oh well, live and learn," shrugged Harry returning to his meal only to discover Hedwig had managed to get away with all of his bacon and he now had to wait for more to be fetched by his enchanted spork.

"At least they didn't say you were just trying to get one of them wet," said J smiling.

"Or that you just wanted her tied up," added Ern.

Sue grumbled angrily.

"Oh lighten up," snapped Hannah. "It's not like anybody actually believes this rot. You'd have a to be a total moron-"

"Well, Potter, I must say I am impressed," said Malfoy having approached the table unnoticed. "I didn't if know anybody had explained the 'old ways' to you, but it's obvious you understand them..."

Hannah sighed, while Susan looked even angrier.

Harry just smiled and nodded.

#

"Harry, you need to come with me to see Hagrid," demanded Hermione.

"Okay," said Harry, instantly dropping his quill and parchment and standing up.

Hermione, caught off guard at Harry's instant agreement, stalled.

"Are you even going to ask why?" she asked, getting over her initial shock and argument derailment.

"I'm sure you will tell me," shrugged Harry, motioning for her to lead the way.

"Yes, well, that horrid reporter who has been writing all that nonsense about you has told the world that Hagrid is a half-giant and he has gone and locked himself up in his cabin and won't come out."

"Bugger," said Harry walking alongside her as she strode purposely along.

Well, as she tried to stride along purposely but then found herself having to slow down and wait for Harry's more moderated pace lest she leave him behind and end up at her destination without him in sight, yet again.

"That's we have had that substitute," continued Hermione. "While she is a better teacher, for the most part, it is just not right that Hagrid should feel he is not welcome simply because his parents aren't what some bigoted idiots-"

"Hang on," interrupted Harry, stopping in his tracks. "So he really is a half giant? Was it his mum or his dad?"

"What possible difference could that make?"

"Are you serious?" he asked. "I mean, how? How can it possibly have worked, with him, and her, if one of them was like five times the size of the other?"

"Harry!" said Hermione, turning slightly red. "How can you think of such a thing at a time like this? Hagrid needs help and support, not people probing into the personal lives of his parents."

"Yeah, but, I mean – oh come on. Don't tell me this sort of thing is common! Surely wizards don't just run about with really good enlarging charms-"

"It doesn't matter," said Hermione, going even redder.

"And if it was his mum who went out looking for a really big –"

"Harry!" yelled Hermione.

"Well all I am saying is the whole thing sounds a bit sus," said Harry. "If he really is a half giant then somebody has a lot of explaining to do because there are definitely areas of magic where our education has been woefully neglected!"

#

Hargid wouldn't open the door.

"Oh, well," said Harry sadly. "That's that then. Let go."

"We can't give up that easily," argued Hermione, banging on the door again. "We are not going away until you let us in, Hagrid."

"Yeah we can, actually. It's pretty easy..."

"Hagrid, we are going to keep knocking until you let us in so you might as well do it sooner rather than later," called Hermione, banging on the door again as if the last five minutes of it didn't count.

Harry considered his options. It would be a waste to go back after coming this far without achieving anything, and he hated waste. Beside, Hermione would hassle him forever if he left. Tiny was a good fellow and had done him a solid with the mermaid translation, so he sort of owed him. It just didn't feel right to let the big guy suffer over something stupid that he really couldn't be blamed for (unlike the whole Dragon egg fiasco, or that time with the unexpected Hippogriff ride).

Setting fire to the door was an option. He had learned at least two different spells for setting fire to things as they had lots of potential uses, but while that would likely get the door open, it wasn't really a nice thing to do. Plus he'd end up having to fix it, although he might be able to convince Hermione to fix it, especially if he pointed out it was her idea to come down and barge their way into the someone else's problems.

He had just convinced himself that a little bit arson was in order when the door suddenly opened and the headmaster walked out.

"See, Hagrid," the old professor said. "It is not only I who miss their teacher, no matter his heritage. Now I expect to see you back taking classes on Monday, no excuses."

" _Or I could just wait and let things pan out by themselves_ ," Harry thought to himself.

Somehow that often seemed like the way to go.

#

"Mr Potter, why in Merlin's name were you throwing Omnioculars off the astronomy tower?" asked Professor Sprout, or Flowers, as Harry usually thought of her before Fleur had come along and made things confusing.

"I can't see why I am in trouble for it. They were mine and I put a sign up on the ground where I was throwing them warning people," said Harry sulkily.

"Did you not consider that people might venture over to read the sign, thus putting themselves into the 'Danger Zone' as you so called it on your warning?"

"Not my fault some people are too curious for their own good," said Harry. "Haven't they heard about that stuff killing cats and all that?"

"You almost knocked young Mr Creevey out, and then summoned him to the top of the tower-"

"Why did he think he was doing, catching my Omnioculars anyway?"

"-then you dropped him!"

"Well I wasn't expecting a second year to come flying up at my face, was I? Startled me he did."

"And you still haven't explained why you were throwing Omnioculars off the astronomy tower."

Harry mumbled a reply.

"Pardon, Mr Potter?" said Sprout. "I didn't quite hear that."

Harry mumbled again, slightly louder.

"Once again if you would please, Mr Potter. This time with some clarity."

"I was trying to teach them to fly," admitted Harry looking down with embarrassment.

"Why would you think you could teach them to fly by throwing them off a tower?" asked his Head of House in an exasperated and confused tone.

"Apparently I didn't quite understand something I read about how evolution works," said Harry, hanging his head.

"Misunderstood evolution? How the devil can you... And why would you want them to fly anyway?"

"I thought it would be really neat for people like Hermione, who doesn't like flying, to be able to see the world from really high up," said Harry quietly. "I tried recording while I was flying on a broom, but it shakes around too much and just made her dizzy again. I figured if I could get the Omnioculars to fly they would be more like Hedwig and give a really nice view of Hogwarts. I tries training her to carry them but she was only interested in eating them."

"Really?" asked Professor Sprout, her tone extremely sceptical.

"Yeah," said Harry. "It's amazing what that owl tries to eat. Hermione's cat is lucky it is as big as she is, and Nev's toad hasn't dared leave the Gryffindor common room since that one time he mistakenly got too close to her at the breakfast table..."

"I meant about your reasoning, not the dietary habits of your spirit animal!"

"Oh, yeah. Hermione's been in a Muggle plane before, but they go too high to really see anything, and they don't fly over Hogwarts or Hogsmeade anyway. Half the school has never been higher than the tower either."

"Mr Potter, I suspect there is a lot more to this than you are letting on," she said.

Harry held his breath waiting for the inevitable punishment he knew was coming.

"But as Mr Creevey was not injured and seems to consider the whole incident a 'terrific adventure', I am inclined to give you just two nights helping the younger years with their homework as punishment for your foolish endangerment of fellow students, and this time you will stick to the Hogwarts curriculum and not teach younger years any of your 'short cut magic', understood?"

"Yes, mam,"said Harry. "But I have to say, Professor Lupin agreed with me, fire really is the solution to most Defence Against the Dark Arts issues."

"Never the less, you will not encourage any students to learn the Fiendfyre spell, understood?"

"Not even the seventh years?"

"Especially not the seventh years – they might actually be capable of casting it!"

"Okay," agreed Harry.

"Now about teaching Omniculars to fly, I would suggest you ask Madam Pince for books by Jareth Hobart regarding the Levitation spell. I dare say that will be much more fruitful than throwing your possessions off a tower and hoping they learn to fly through trial and error."

Harry left the professor's office, careful not to allow the smile he was struggling to contain come out until he was well away from his Head of House.

Some people may have considered it a lot of effort to go to, but after many hours spent in the library with Hermione, Harry knew he could very easily have gone down an endless rabbit hole looking for a way to map out the maze that was growing where the Quidditch pitch used to be. Flying over it was prohibited and it was obscured somehow so you could not see it from a distance, so he needed something that could fly and record.

All of his enquiries to normal sources had proven fruitless, with many of the suggestions being if not totally useless, not what he was trying for at all (throwing the Omnioculars off the tower had actually been a suggestion made to him, rather than his own idea, but Harry was not afraid to steal a good idea when it fell into his lap) so he knew he had to ask someone who had a much better clue than his normal sources, a professor preferably, but in a manner that did not violate the rules of the tournament.

Of course it would be amusing to see if Hermione got sick watching the recordings he would make during the test flights, and Lockhart already indicated there would be a small market for them too, if he could figure out a way to make the flying smooth and controlled.

Harry really liked it when a plan paid off multiple times. It felt like less work that way.

Unfortunately he would end up being extremely disappointed after discovering the maze changed shape frequently, but at least his efforts did not completely go to waste.

#

Harry kept waving to the audience and smiling as he casually walked towards the entrance to the maze, apparently not the slightest bit nervous or anxious despite starting so much later than the other competitors by virtue of his scoring (or lack of more precisely) in the second task.

The other contestants had all sprinted the moment the canon went off for them, determined to squeeze the most out of every extra second and not lose a precious moment. Harry was also determined to squeeze every second of his life for every bit of value, but his idea of what made good value was considered a bit skewed compared to his peers.

For instance, it was not every day that he would allow himself to be paraded in front of several hundred people, and definitely not likely they would all be cheering for him so exuberantly. True, many here were just urging him on in the hope of seeing something horrible and violent happen to him, but their actions were still basically inseparable from those who were honestly wishing him good luck.

For the first time, Harry actually appreciated why Quidditch stars might work so hard to get to the top of their sport, and that sort of scared him, since he could apparently very easily became the greatest seeker the world had ever seen, at least until someone worked out why Snitches seemed to have such an obsession with him.

Still, he was here, the crowd was here, and he was loving the momentary bit of adoration and attention that he would never again go out of his way to seek, so why rush in?

Giving a final wave of his wand to the cheering throngs, Harry stepped into the maze and was instantly completely cut off from the noise of the crowd. The eerie silence and low light set the scene for an incredible spooky experience that Harry really appreciated for its artistic merit, but did not particularly like as a personal experience.

With no reason to pick one way over the other (except that he might have noticed Floor going to the left, making that direction and the prospect of following behind her very tempting), Harry stood just inside the opening to the maze and waited patiently.

A few moments later the bushes rippled and bent, twisting and turning into a new configuration that would, by Harry's estimation after watching hours of recordings, last for the next few minutes; slightly less than the time before. After four times it would reset to a longer interval and then start decreasing again.

It was one of the very few useful things he had gotten out from his illicit recordings.

Years of trying to work out the system of moving staircases and secret passages inside of Hogwarts to shorten the amount of effort it took to get to classes on time had honed Harry's ability to see patterns in random seeming chaos. While he had still not completely mastered the castle, he had become pretty good at timing it all.

The temptation to rush in, trying to make his way to the centre where the trophy waited as quickly as possible was difficult to resist, even for him. Despite his natural inclination to let things work themselves out and only worry about the things he could affect with the minimum of effort, he was determined to take a more active hand in fate this time.

He wanted to wipe that smug superior look off Floor and her massive Headmistress's face. He wanted Krum to have a real reason to look as sour as he always did. He wanted Ceddy and the rest of his house to be forced to recognise Harry could accomplish more with less effort than they could working as hard as they possibly could. He wanted the rest of the school to realise he was more than just an average student.

He wanted to win.

So he stood perfectly still, his wand casually held in front of him ready to deal with anything that might unexpectedly pop up from the maze.

Like Cedric, who suddenly appeared around a corner; his wand ablaze with light. He hesitated when he saw Harry, but then swore as he noticed the entry to the maze and realised he was back at the start after having already spend ten minutes navigating around in circles.

"What are you doing?" Cedric asked as he jogged up to Harry. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Harry, appreciative of his housemate's obvious concern. "Just waiting for a bit."

Cedric looked confused, but nodded, not really that interested in what Harry was planning to do, or not do, as the case may be. "Keep an eye out for the golden mist - it flips you upside down."

"Thanks," nodded Harry as Cedric raced off to the next turn.

The maze rippled again, pretty much exactly on time, but this time closing off the huge opening where he and the other competitors had entered. It was now impossible to differentiate it from any other sections of the hedge wall.

A few metres to the side of where he stood, an opening appeared leading inwards. Harry walked towards it, forcing himself not to rush; his wand still held warily in front of him. He really wanted to cast a spell to light up the area, but that would mean keeping a spell going the whole time, plus it would make him stand out literally like a beacon, attracting who knows what attention.

His night sight was pretty good, despite the fact he needed glasses to see, but the maze somehow felt like it was really dark when he could actually see quite a lot more than he should have been able to. Whatever the reason, and it was obviously something magical, he could see another opening heading the way he wanted to go, so he carefully navigated his way to it, conjuring a small mirror on a stick to let him see around the corner to make sure there was nothing waiting for him on either side before he walked in.

Hopefully there weren't any vampires in here that would not show up in the mirror's reflection.

Since it looked clear, he moved through the opening, and then walked back along the hedge wall so that he was standing in line with his original entry to the maze and its centre.

"Point me," he cast, his wand spinning around several times before settling down and showing him the way north.

Satisfied he was as close to exactly the right place as he was going to get without putting in a huge amount of effort, he settled down and waited. It was a simple strategy, one that was not guaranteed to work, and was likely going to be very slow, but Harry understood enough about magic to know it stood at least as good a chance as running around blindly fighting off who knows what monstrosities Tiny let loose, while also avoiding sinister traps or having to trying to solve clever puzzles in order to move forward.

A few minutes later, Cedric ran past again, looking slightly worse for wear this time.

"How the hell did you get in front of - no, don't tell me," he said, breathing heavily as he made way further down the corridor. "Look out for the Acromantula – it's a big spider, a really big one, and it is not friendly at all."

"Thanks!" called Harry as Cedric's light faded away.

Floor came past next, her wand alight and warily pointing in Harry's general direction. She watched him suspiciously, waiting to see what he would do. Her hair had come slightly undone and face was smudged with dirt, a fact Harry really wanted to point out to her.

"You've got a little bit of something," he said in a polite friendly voice, pointing to his cheek, "right there."

She suddenly looked offended and let out a snort of annoyance before putting her nose in the air and walking past Harry, ignoring him, just like she had every other time he or any other Hogwarts student had been near her.

Cedric came past again heading the opposite direction just as the hedge moved, another opening appearing near Harry, heading in the direction he wanted to go.

"How did you do that?" asked Cedric as he followed Harry into the new corridor. "Did you know it was going to open there?"

"Magic," said Harry smugly.

"Bull," said Cedric, laughing. Then he turned and headed off, waving absently to Harry, only to stop as Floor came around the corner he was heading towards.

Instantly their wands pointed at each other, and Harry also found himself pointing his own wand at the French beauty without even thinking about it. She glanced at Harry quickly before returning her attention to Cedric, no longer looking quite as self-assured as she normally did. Seconds ticked by as everyone tried to work out what to do next.

"Let's not anyone get too excited," said Harry, breaking the silence. "I figure we've all got enough to deal with in here without adding to it, all right?"

Floor spared him another glance before nodding and lowering her wand slightly. Cedric too lowered his wand, and then moved to the side of the corridor, allowing the maximum room possible for her to walk past.

"Mademoiselle," he said, nodding and gesturing with his free hand to indicate she was free to walk by.

"Merci," Floor said, standing up straighter before striding past with a slight smirk bending the corners of her mouth. She barely glanced at Harry again, but he noticed a definite sway in her walk as she past him and once again felt that almost irresistible pull on something deep inside of himself.

He was starting to suspect it was fear, or maybe indigestion. Either way, it did nothing good for him.

As the woman ducked around the far corner, he let out a breath he did not know he was holding and turned to look at Cedric, who obviously had also been watching her.

"Trouble, that one," said Harry.

Cedric smiled and nodded in agreement, and then continued on his way, leaving Harry alone once again.

As time dragged on, it took a bit of willpower to stick to his plan. Harry easily fought off the urge to do something stupid or wasteful and patiently waited until openings appeared heading in the direction he wanted to go. Sometimes he had to wait multiple changes in the maze before it happened, but it always did, eventually.

Cedric came past a few more times, looking more and more beat up and wore out, and more determined. He didn't say a word to Harry the last couple of encounters, just nodding as if to save his energy.

Floor ran past too, stopping in startled surprise as she recognised Harry, before mumbling darkly in French and running back the way she came. Harry smiled to himself, hoping she thought that he hadn't moved and she had returned to the same place she had met him before.

Then he nearly bumped into Sour-puss-face when the maze opened up a path directly to the stout foreigner.

"Evening," said Harry, smiling like a loon. "Nice night for a walk, eh?"

Krum did not look happy, as well as looking quite dirty and even a bit burnt in places, and for a moment Harry thought his third task might be over as Krum's wand pointed at him, but eventually the international Quidditch star snorted in amusement and lowered his wand before nodding in acknowledgement at Harry and then heading off in another direction.

Eventually Harry's luck ran a bit dry and the shift in the maze opened up to a corridor that was not empty. A thick golden mist filled the whole length of the path in front of him. The path in the other direction turned a corner, heading in a direction away from the line he needed to return to.

Harry walked to the edge of the mist and poked at it with his wand. It didn't feel any different. What did Ceddy say, it flipped you upside down? Probably not difficult to get through then, but he could just wait for the next change and hopefully get around it all together.

A noise from around the corner startled Harry. He half expected to see one of the other champions again, but the shape that loomed out of the darkness as it stepped around the corner was not anything he expected, or hoped, to ever seen in Hogwarts.

"Well you've gone and done it now, getting expelled, as expected," said Harry's Aunt Petunia angrily. "You can look forward to a future working for your uncle in his factory now that all that magic nonsense is behind you."

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Harry, waving his wand frantically.

He had never really been much good at defending against Boggarts despite all of professor Lupin's personal tutoring, mainly because the panic he experienced always seem to wreck his ability to visualise something funny to force the Boggart into. "Oh screw this," he said, abandoning his attempts to defeat the creature pretending to be his aunt. "Accio," he cast, pulling it towards him with a speed and force he would normally be proud of.

He barely had a moment to duck aside as the faux Petunia flew at him, screaming about his uselessness and doomed future, but the moment it was level he cast the next spell.

"Depulso," he yelled, hitting the creature as it went past, sending it spinning into the golden mist.

Immediately 'Petunia' let out a wretched scream and shot off into the sky, disappearing into the distance well above the massively tall hedge maze walls.

"Hmm, fancy that," mumbled Harry to himself. He threw a couple of summoned rocks into the mist while he waited for the maze to change again, watching them shoot off upwards. It'd be interesting to know where they came back down, he thought. Hopefully that Boggart wouldn't end up in a Muggle house or something. Could a Boggart survive in outer space?

Eventually the maze changed and an opening in the direction he wanted appeared. A couple more times Harry again encountered obstacles on the path in front of him, but he managed to avoid the temptation of engaging whatever fascinating thing he saw and just waited until the maze moved enough to make it possible for him to bypass whatever it was. In one instance there appeared to be a half bird half human creature with really large, er, wings, waiting near the end of the corridor. That one really tested his determination.

He did start to use a branch he pulled from the hedge to poke at anything that looks suspicious, like bits of ground that looked a bit muddy or burnt, and took up throwing rocks at places he could not see clearly, but generally he was able to avoid everything that might have caused him any significant inconvenience or effort.

It wasn't exactly boring, since the atmosphere had him bordering on panic the whole time, but there was a certain lack of direct excitement that left Harry feeling a bit disappointed at the same time as he was relieved.

Cedric ran past again, the back of his robes on fire. Harry thought about hosing him down as he passed by, but figured if Cedric wasn't worried, then it wasn't something he needed to do. He was pretty sure Ceddy hadn't even seen him and it would not be a good idea to startle the poor boy in his exhausted state.

A few maze changes later Krum strode by in the distance, looking very angry. He was using what Harry first mistook for a large furry branch as a walking stick. It took a few minutes for Harry to realise it was a big spider's leg; a really big spider.

"Well that's one less thing to worry about then," said Harry warily keeping an eye in that direction. He didn't think Krum had actually seen him, since he still had not lit his wand up and had taken to standing with his back to the hedge wall only occasionally casting the Four-Point spell to keep on target, but he suspected things might start to get nasty as they had to be closing in on the centre by now. It even seemed to be getting darker, although that could have been his imagination.

Harry had never moved more than a dozen metres away from the line he had plotted to the centre, and had a rough idea of how far he had to go, but he wasn't foolish enough to be absolutely certain.

Things tended to get strange once you got magic involved.

Still, he had a plan and no reason to change it, so he stuck to it, patiently waiting for the right openings. He only decided to cast a charm on himself to be less visible after seeing Krum and his new walking stick go by again and realised the spider-leg-walking-stick was half as long as it had been the first time.

The Disillusionment was a tricky bit of magic, and Harry wasn't sure he had cast it right, but Floor didn't seem to notice him as she wandered past looking seriously beat up with Cedric following meekly behind her like a doe-eyed puppy, apparently enthralled or something.

Harry thought about interfering, but caught himself before he did something foolish that would reveal his presence and endanger himself, and probably end up costing a lot of energy and effort to get out of. Instead he waited until they were almost out of sight and then cast a tickling charm on Cedric. He had no idea what it would do, if anything, but it was likely to mess something up and he could always honestly admit he had tried to help his fellow house mate.

After all, it was really hard to concentrate on anything when you were being tickled, so maybe Cedric would break free. Then again, he might just be able to ignore it, the way some people could not be tickled.

Freaks.

After an eternity the maze changed and an entry into a large almost empty square opened up; almost empty, aside from the glowing Tri-wizard Tournament cup sitting right in the middle on a waist high pedestal.

Harry almost couldn't help himself. He wanted to run and grab the cup, putting an end to this whole terrifying ordeal, but running for no reason was definitely not something he would normally do.

Hell, walking was an activity he normally avoided if possible.

He considered summoning the cup, but figured that would be a waste of time since if the egg in the first task was protected from that, it was unlikely the finally object in the challenge would be too.

Boy, he would feel really silly if it turned out all he had to do was stand at the entry of the maze and summon the cup to have won.

Nothing sprung up out of the ground or leaped out of the shadows as he slowly and carefully made his way over to the pedestal and its glowing prize. No pits opened or cages fell from the sky; no invisible barriers barred his way or twisted space and time to move him further away, and within a matter of a minute he was standing right in front of the trophy.

Just before he grabbed it, winning the tournament, he thought to himself "Well, that was actually rather easy," and then his hand closed on the handle of the cup.

"Bugger," he said sourly as a familiar twisting began.

The gut wrenching feeling of the port key gripping him was the last thing Harry felt before being whisked away.

#

"Sees, I told you Mr Harry potter would wins, just like the prophersies said," yelled an elf excitedly. "Winky's said the young master's needs must comes first and so he dids!"

"Yous also says the Great Harry Potter will gets get exploded, set on fire, or turned into a newt," argued another elf.

"Those were falsie prophecies for unbelieverers," said the first elf.

The small gathering of elves watching from the roof of the Ravenclaw tower all nodded in agreements.

"Good thing I puts his name in the goblet then!" said another obviously trying to claim credit for helping one of Winky's ramblings match their interpretation.

"So did I!" yelled another.

"Mees too!" yelled a third, "and mine was the ones that came out!"

"Was not," cried the first of the elves balling its fists angrily, ready to defend its claim.

"Silly Elvies. I was the one to make silly Goblet pick Mr Harry Potter sir's name," said another elf looking smug.

"Liar," screamed the other elf, leaping at him.

The ensuring brawl proceeded along normal lines with the added excitement of possibly getting tossed off one of the tallest towers in the castle, but Dobby had finally had enough.

All the craziness generated by increasingly wild interpretations of Winky's mumbling had been getting to him, and learning the elves were the ones who had made Mr Harry Potter sir compete in the tournament finally pushed him too far.

Enough was enough and there was a feast needing to be made merrier than he could on his own.

So when everyone else busy trying to pummel the other elves, he snuck into Winky's room and cast the sobering spell the Malfoy's had kept secret for many generations. If she really was in a trance and not just falling down drunk as Mrs Malfoy on the weekends, nobody would know, but if he was right, all this nonsense would go away and the elves could get back to proper workings.

Instantly Winky lost her 'mystical' glazed look and blinked, looking around clearly for the first time in a very long time.

"Oh dear," she said, blinking again. "The masters is going to be really angries with Winky. Winky knew she's not meant to have two butter beeries in a night, but she's was just so caught up in the Quidditchy World games things. Oh dearies, dear me. I must get back to young master before he sneakiess off again!"

Dobby snuck away, happy to have fixed that mess.

#

Harry was standing on the winner's podium holding the trophy above his head. The crowd was cheering wildly. Dumbledore and all the professors, even Snape, were clapping and cheering loudly. Floor, half naked from having her clothes mostly burnt off was looking at him with unbridled admiration. Sour-puss face was clapping and agreeing with Ceddy, who was completely naked for some reason, that they had never really had a chance against Harry.

It was glorious.

"Potter! Wake up!"

The harsh voice harry vaguely recognised as his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher cut through his dream and roused him to semi consciousness. "What?" he mumbled.

"I said wake up," yelled the professor. "Get up and present yourself!"

Hands grabbed Harry and lifted him upright as his eyes fluttered open.

"Are you all right, my boy?" asked Professor Dumbledore.

"What happened?" Harry asked, slowly becoming more aware of his surroundings.

"He's okay!" called someone.

A band started paying loudly and the crowd started cheering, although not as exuberantly as in his dream.

"You took a bit of a tumble and knocked yourself out after you were portkeyed here," exaplained Madam Pomfrey, running a wand up and down all over him. "But you are remarkably unscathed, apart from a rather large bump on your head."

"Hang on," said Mad-eye taking his wand out. With a series of quick slashes of his wand and angry sounding spells, Harry was suddenly a lot dirtier and even had what appeared to be the multicoulored blood of several creatures splashed over his robes.

"Alastor moody!" yelled Pomfrey. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Can't have the lad look like he walked to the middle of the maze and picked up the cup without trying," chuckled the nut-case as he shoved Harry towards the podium.

"Yeah, thanks for that," grumbled Harry, spitting out foul liquids that had managed to somehow get in his mouth.

"The winner of the Triward Tournament is Harry Potter!" pronounced the ministry stooge, holding up one of Harry arms and clapping Harry on the back, forcing him to pose for pictures from an armada of photographers.

After a seeming eternity Harry managed to get down off the stage and started to make his way through the crowd of strangers all wanting to shake his hands and congratulate him, until his friends finally pushed their way through to him.

Surrounded by people he actually valued enough to make an effort to care for, Harry finally felt a true smile come to his face.

"I knew you could do it," said Hermione, enveloping him in a massive hug despite his Moody-created state of uncleanliness.

"Bulldust," he laughed before getting crushed by Susan and Hannah.

"I thought the Wrackspurts had you at the end," said Moongirl dreamily. "It would have been sad to end the year with a funeral instead of a celebration. Unless it was a wake I suppose, but I don't think I'd like that as much. People tend to be a bit morbid at wakes."

"True," agreed Harry, not really knowing but happy to believe the strange girl's convictions.

Harry looked around again, momentarily taking a break from the excitement and adrenaline.

He had wanted a more exciting year, and while this was way more than he had been aiming for, it had been a pretty good one really. Nothing had really gone how he had expected, and he had strayed from his path quite a distance, but all in all, he felt he had definitely achieve maximum effect for minimum effort.

"Come on Harry, get up to the dorm and get cleaned up. There's a huge party in the Great hall!" said J.

"Mate," Harry said, looking pointedly at them, "I'm the winner here, you really think I'm going to walk all that way? Nah, you want me there, you can carry me!"

Surprisingly, they did just that without argument, hoisting him up onto their shoulders just like he wanted, and they didn't drop him, not even once.

#

In dark Gaveyard behind a decrepit house, not far from where the old world war two veteran was peacefully snoring, deeply asleep while dreaming about stabbing people with a bayonet, a crazy wizard waited anxiously near a large cauldron that was boiling away, noxious vapours pouring over its rim and spilling onto the mist covered ground.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind and a figured appeared ten feet in front him, dropping to the ground in a tangled heap.

A second figure appeared a second later, rending the quite night air with a loud crack.

"Stupify!" yelled both wizards at the same time.

Red beams shot out and struck the figure, dropping it back onto the ground from where it had been trying to rise.

"Yes!" yelled Barty Crouch junior excitedly.

"I told you," said Peter Pettigrew. "That lunatic Black would not stop going on about their secret hide out. For months I had to listen to him rant and rave about all the time they spent there and how there was a cave that lead to the forest. All I had to do was sneak in and throw a portkey at him."

"Tie him up and get his wand", said Crouch.

"You get his wand," said Peter.

Crouch instantly turned his wand towards Peter.

"Okay, I'll get his wand," whimpered Peter, scrambling over to the prone figure. He tried to hold his wand in one hand and search the strange robes with the other. "Come on Harry, where's your wand then? Oh look, it appears he broke it in the fall."

Suddenly a hand shot out and grabbed his throat in a crushing grip.

Peter dropped both his wand and the broken wand to grab at the hand choking him, trying to scream as the figure stood, lifting the small man off the ground.

"Get out of the way!" yelled Barty pointlessly as he tried to get a clear line of sight. "Ah to hell with it. Avada Kedavra."

A green light shot out of his wand and struck the statue near the figure holding Peter up, causing a spray of stone shards to burst out, pelting both figures and nearly knocking them down.

Peter fall from the death grip on his throat and whimpered in terror. In the blink of an eye he turned into a rat and began bolting away, only to scream as a knife flashed out as nearly cut him in half.

Barty Crouch excitedly fired off another killing curse, this time hitting his target right in the robe covered chest.

There was a pause, a moment when the world stood still as the spell hit. The silent figure slumped slightly, then stood up straight and turned its head towards Barty.

And Larry's eyes glowed with a deep green light.

 **Finite incantatem**


End file.
